'    - 


/^UBEARY 

I      SAN  DIEGO 


and  the 


Berkshire  Highlands 

By 

Stocl8>ric§£  Wtit  oMgafe  Mahkeenac. 


("  Monument  "  and  "  The  Dome  "  in  the  distance.) 

This  was  the  view  Hawthorne's  "little  red  house" 

commanded. 


Illustrated 


G.  P.  Putnam's  Sons 
New  York  and  London 
tlbe  Knickerbocker 

1902 


(.3DneJaib.3rit  ni  " 
"aauorf  bsi  alJJtl"  e'amo 


Lenox 

and  the 


Berkshire  Highlands 

By 

R.  DeWitt  Mallary 


Illustrated 


G.  P.  Putnam's  Sons 
New  York  and  London 
Gbe  fnitcfcerbocker  prese 

1902 


COPYRIGHT,  1902 

BY 

R.  DE  WITT  MALLARY 

Published,  June,  1902 


Cbe  ftnicftcrbochet  press,  IRcw  j^orft 


TO  THE  MEMORY  OF 

RICHARD  H.  WALKER,  ESQ. 

THE  GRANDFATHER  OF  MY  CHILDREN 

AND 

THE  GRANDSON  OF  ONE  OF  THE   EARLY 
SETTLERS  OF  LENOX 


PREFACE 

THE  author's  desire  in  the  publication  of 
these  essays  and  addresses,  some  of  which 
have  been  read  before  various  literary  and 
historical  societies,  is  to  orient  the  stranger 
who  is  within  the  gates  of  the  Berkshire 
country.  Lenox  has  become  so  notably  on 
the  beaten  path  of  travel  as  to  demand,  in 
convenient  form,  some  handbook  of  inform- 
ation which  shall  play  the  part  of  guide.  The 
aim  of  this  book  is  not  to  write  history  but  to 
tell  enough  of  the  story  of  the  past  to  aid  in 
making  the  region  intelligible. 

Great  pains  has  been  taken  to  insure  his- 
torical accuracy,  but  inasmuch  as  authorities 
are  not  always  in  perfect  agreement  it  is  too 
much  to  be  hoped  that  inerrancy  has  been 
secured  in  every  instance.  In  order  to  com- 
pass the  aim  of  absolute  veracity,  the  author, 
after  consulting  the  sources,  whether  in  books, 
town  and  church  records,  or  in  the  collec- 
tions of  historical  societies,  submitted  the 
manuscript  of  this  book  to  the  perusal  of  a 


vi  Preface 

few  townsmen.  Kindly  acknowledgments  are 
herewith  returned  to  my  friends  and  col- 
lege mates,  Robert  C.  Rockwell,  Esq.,  and 
Richard  Goodman,  Esq.,  both  of  Lenox,  for 
valuable  suggestions.  I  am  also  indebted  to 
Miss  Anna  L.  White,  of  the  Lenox  Library, 
for  assistance  in  proof-reading. 

R.  DEW.  MALLARY. 

"  SPRINGCROFT," 

LENOX,  MASS., 

January  16,  1902. 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

I. — OLD-TIME  LENOX      .....         i 

II. — LENOX   AND  ITS   ENVIRONMENT,   IN    LIT- 
ERATURE  47 

III. — CATHERINE  MARIA  SEDGWICK:    HER  MES- 
SAGE AND  HER  WORK        ....     108 

IV. — WITH  HAWTHORNE  IN  LENOX.         .         .     136 
V. — MODERN  LENOX         .         ...         .         .     161 

VI. — THE  VICINAGE  ......     207 

VII. — THE  GENESIS  OF  VILLAGE  IMPROVEMENT 
AND  THE  LAUREL  HILL  ASSOCIATION, 
STOCKBRIDGE,  MASS.  ....  275 

VIII. — THE  CHURCH   OF  BERKSHIRE   UNTIL  THE 

DISESTABLISHMENT  IN  1834  .         .     294 

IX. — EPITAPHS  IN  BERKSHIRE  CHURCHYARDS    .     342 
INDEX 357 


ILLUSTRATIONS 

Stockbridge  Bowl  or  Lake  Mahkeenac 

Frontispiece 

("  Monument"  and  "  The  Dome  "  in  the  distance.) 
This  was  the  view  Hawthorne's  "  little  red  house  " 
commanded.  (See  p.  144.) 

Lenox  in  1839 

(A  reprint  from  Barber's  Hist.  Coll,  of  Mass.) 

The  Council  of  Washington  and  his  Generals 
before  Monmouth 

(Bas-relief  on  monument  at  Freehold,  N.  J.) 
The  council  is  evenly  divided.     La  Fayette  is  urging 
the  advance  ;  Paterson  is  sitting  at  his  right,  in 
front  of  Washington,  and   is   in   sympathy  with 
the  speaker. 

First  County  Court-House,  erected  1792.   Mon- 
ument to  Major-General  John  Paterson     . 

The  old  Lenox  Academy,  erected  1803  (now 
used  as  High  School)          .... 

Walker  Street,  Lenox 

At  the  junction  of  Main  and  Cliffwood  Streets, 
Congregational  Church  in  the  distance 


20 
26 


x  Illustrations 

PAGE 

Second  County   Court-House   (erected    1816), 

now  Sedgwick  Hall    .....       46 

Fanny  Kemble           ......       74 

Laurel  Lake  from  "  Walker's  Hill  ".         .         .84 

Main  Street,  Lenox,  looking  down  from  the 
Church-on-the-Hill,  "Rattlesnake"  and 
"  Monument  "  in  the  distance  .  .  .  102 

Catherine  Maria  Sedgwick         .         .         .         .128 

(From  the  painting  by  Ingham.) 

The  "  little  red  house  "  where  Hawthorne  lived 
when  he  was  in  Lenox,  1850-1851.  Here 
was  written  The  House  of  Seven  Gables  .  146 

(Destroyed  by  fire  June  22,  1890.) 

A  vista,  Lenox.     Taghconics  in  the  distance, 

Bald  Head  at  the  left         .         .         .         .166 

The  view  from  the  Aspinwall  piazza.         .         .180 

Rattlesnake  Mt.,  Monument  Mt.,  Stockbridge  Bowl, 
Taghconics. 

Yokun  Avenue,  Lenox      .  .         „         .     188 

Laurel  Lake       .......     194 

Trinity  Episcopal  Church,  Kemble  Street         .     198 
Greylock  from  Onota  Lake,  Pittsfield       .         .210 

The  Haystack  Monument  at  Williams  College, 
marking  the  birthplace  of  American  For- 
eign Missions,  Williamstown,  Mass.  .  .214 


Illustrations  xi 

PAGE 

The  home  of  Longfellow's  wife,  Pittsfield, 
where  stood  the  "  Old  Clock  on  the  Stairs," 
the  original  of  the  well-known  poem  by 
that  name 224 

"  Somewhat  back  from  the  village  street 
Stands  the  olc'-fashioned  country-seat." 

The  home  of  Catherine  Maria  Sedgwick,  Stock- 
bridge  236 

The  house  where  William  Cullen  Bryant  lived 
when  he  was  a  lawyer  and  town-clerk  in 
Great  Barrington,  1816-1822  .  .  .  252 

The  Indian  Monument,  Stockbridge,  Mass.      .     282 
The  Rev.  Samuel  Shepard,  D.D.      .         .         .338 

Pastor  Congregational  Church,  Lenox,  Mass.,  1795- 
1846. 

The  Church-on-the-Hill     .         .         .         .         .352 

Lenox  Congregational  Church,  dedicated  January 
i,  1806.  Monument  with  urn  at  the  left  marks 
Dr.  Shepard's  grave. 

The  design  used  on  the  cover  of  this  volume 
was  reproduced  from  the  coat  of  arms  of 
Lennox,  Duke  of  Richmond,  a  picture  of 
which  is  hanging  in  the  Town  Library, 
Lenox. 


THE    BERKSHIRE    HILLS 

Age-long,  the  joy  of  succeeding  generations  ; 
Rock-ribbed,  an  eternal  parable  of  firmness  ; 
Commanding  visions  that  emancipate  and  calm, 

beauteous  in  the  daily  and  seasonal  changes  ; 
Whose  many  villas,  crowning  graceful  slopes,  deck 

Nature's  bosom  with  Art's  most  lavish  adornments; 
Whose  fame  in  letters,  joined  with  pastoral  beauty, 

rightly  names  the  region  the  "  Lake  Country  of 

America." 


LENOX 


OLD-TIME  LENOX 

MIDWAY  between  the  mountain  sentinels, 
"Greylock"  and  "The  Dome,"  which 
stand  guard  one  at  either  end  of  Berkshire, 
Lenox  lifts  its  head  among  the  many  emi- 
nences which  seem  thrown  in  profusion  by  some 
Titanic  hand  throughout  this  westernmost 
county  of  Massachusetts.  Inhabited  since  1750 
and  incorporated  in  1767,  the  village  became 
twenty  years  later,  with  the  settlement  of  the 
county  northward,  the  shire-town,  and  thither 
the  tribes  went  up,  as  to  some  Jerusalem  of 
old,  for  the  inspiration  that  affected  their 
social,  civil,  and  religious  life.  During  the 
Revolutionary  struggle  it  was  the  cradle  of  a 


2  Lenox 

genuine  American  patriotism,  as  was  this  whole 
region,  and  hardly  had  that  appeal  to  arms 
been  decided  when  Lenox  entered  upon  its 
career  as  the  county  seat,  a  fount  of  judicial 
wisdom,  scholastic  learning,  and  social  etiquette. 
Its  first  Court-house,  erected  in  1792,  for  many 
years  occupied  for  town  purposes  and  as  the 
post-office ;  its  second  Court-house,  a  more 
pretentious  structure,  built  in  1816  and  said 
to  have  been  surpassed  in  stateliness  and  ele- 
gance by  few  of  its  kind  in  all  New  England, 
now  used  by  the  Town  Library  Association 
and  by  others  as  a  hive  of  professional  offices  ; 
its  Academy,  constructed  in  1803,  where  for 
threescore  years  and  more  was  conducted 
one  of  the  most  famous  preparatory  schools 
of  that  period  ;  its  justly  celebrated  school  for 
girls  under  the  direction  of  Mrs.  Sedgwick, 
who  carried  it  on  from  1828  until  her  death  in 
1864;  its  village  church  on  the  hilltop  dedi- 
cated to  the  service  of  God  the  first  day  of  the 
year  1806,  were  long  the  most  noted  material 
survivals  of  a  former  generation,  and  most  of 
these,  with  now  and  then  a  house  of  hoary  age, 
are  still  the  vivid  reminders  of  a  notable  period 
in  the  history  of  this  ancient  town,  showing 
that  Lenox,  rearing  her  head  into  and  above 
the  clouds,  viewing  landscapes  of  unsurpassed 


Old-Time  Lenox  3 

loveliness,  and  touched  with  the  artistic  adorn- 
ment of  many  villas,  is  also  crowned  with  an 
aureole  of  glory,  a  mystical  coronet  of  literary, 
civil,  moral,  and  social  greatness  whose  lustre 
pales  not  before  its  later  splendor. 

Berkshire,  which  contains  an  area  of  950 
square  miles  and  was  separated  from  Hamp- 
shire in  1 761,  was  not  "  discovered  "  until  about 
a  hundred  years  after  the  Pilgrim  fathers  set  foot 
on  Plymouth  Rock.  It  was  a  trackless  wilder- 
ness save  as  the  war-path  of  the  Mohican 
Indians  could  be  traced  here  and  there,  these 
aborigines  having  settled  along  the  Housatun- 
nuk  (Housatonic),  at  the  "  Great  Wigwam  " 
which  was  located  near  the  site  of  the  pres- 
ent Congregational  church,  Great  Barrington. 
With  the  gradual  settlement  of  the  county,  the 
settlers  coming  from  over  the  Hoosac  Moun- 
tains and  more  numerously  from  Connecticut, 
the  redskins  were  in  1 736  collected  in  one 
place,  Stockbridge,  where  they  remained  until 
after  the  war  of  the  Revolution.  They  were 
peaceable  aborigines  and  have  been  lovingly 
and  appropriately  termed  "  the  friends  of  our 
fathers."  It  was  not,  however,  until  the  close 
of  the  second  French  and  Indian  war  that  the 
settlement  of  Berkshire  proceeded  at  any  pace. 
The  district  between  the  Housatonic  and  the 


4  Lenox 

Hudson  was  equally  claimed  by  both  Massa- 
chusetts and  New  York  ;  the  boundary-line 
not  having  been  fixed  till  constant  reprisals 
and  bloodshed  between  Puritan  and  Dutchman 
made  it  necessary  toward  the  very  end  of  the 
eighteenth  century.  Moreover  it  was  a  region 
in  which  there  was  certainly  the  fear  of  aborig- 
inal invasions  from  savages  who  swooped  down 
from  Canada  upon  unsuspecting  settlers  in 
adjoining  counties  and  left  nothing  but  ashes 
and  gore  behind.  One  such  incursion  did 
actually  take  place  in  Berkshire.  The  earliest 
settler  to  drive  a  stake  in  Lenox  came  in  1750, 
but  in  1755  he  with  others  fled  before  the 
marauding  redskins  acting  in  unholy  collusion 
with  the  French.  What  with  the  Dutchman 
and  the  Indian  who  would  seek  to  dispossess, 
and  the  mountain  barriers  on  all  sides,  Berk- 
shire lay  isolated,  uninhabited  for  a  century 
after  the  Pilgrim  debarkation,  fringed  by  life 
and  activity,  yet  not  participating  in  any  of  the 
movements  of  civilization  ;  and  even  after  it 
began  to  be  known,  a  country  that  seemed  like 
golden  fleece  to  intending  Argonauts  because 
of  the  dragon  guarding  it. 

Wolfe  was  the  modern  Jason  who  freed  this 
country  for  the  settler  to  come  in,  and  that 
victory  at  Quebec,  by  ending  French  misrule, 


Old-Time  Lenox  5 

pushed  back  the  tide  of  savagery  far  into 
the  outposts.  Berkshire  was  thenceforward 
greedily  and  rapidly  invaded.  Of  the  thirty- 
two  towns  at  present  existing  in  the  county 
twenty  were  incorporated  between  the  close  of 
the  French  and  Indian  wars  and  the  end  of 
the  Revolution,  while  only  three  were  incor- 
porated prior  to  1 760.  For  the  first  twenty-five 
years  after  Montcalm's  forces  were  defeated 
and  Frontenac  and  the  old  regime  had  passed 
from  power,  the  rapidity  of  incorporation  was 
at  the  rate  of  a  town  a  year. 

On  June  2,  1762,  a  parcel  of  property  com- 
prising the  territory  included  now  in  the  town- 
ships of  Richmond  and  Lenox  was  sold  at 
auction  in  the  city  of  Boston  by  order  of  the 
General  Court  in  order  to  relieve  the  finances 
of  the  colony.  An  unwieldy  township  in 
physical  and  municipal  conditions,  it  was  in- 
evitable that  it  should  be  divided.  Crossed 
in  the  centre  from  north  to  south  by  a  moun- 
tain ridge,  the  part  lying  west  and  known  as 
Mount  Ephraim  was  incorporated  June  21, 
1765,  under  the  name  of  Richmond,  while  that 
section  lying  east,  and  previously  known  as 
Yokuntown,  was  set  off  by  act  of  incorporation 
February  26,  1767,  under  the  name  of  Lenox, 
respectively  the  titular  and  family  names  of 


6  Lenox 

the  Duke  of  Richmond,  one  of  the  liberal 
nobles  of  England,  known  to  be  a  friend  of 
the  colonies.  Scarcely  eight  years  old,  the  lit- 
tle hamlet  of  Lenox,  keenly  interested  in  the 
doings  of  the  Continental  Congress,  though 
grappling  with  the  problems  of  a  new  settle- 
ment, found  itself  face  to  face  with  great  na- 
tional issues.  The  local  questions  were  largely 
ecclesiastical,  having  reference  to  the  building 
of  a  new  church,  the  provision  for  the  support 
of  a  minister,  the  levying  and  collecting  of  the 
church  tax  ;  and  the  town  records  of  the  period 
are  rilled  with  the  differences  between  the 
minister,  the  Rev.  Samuel  Monson,  who  had 
been  settled  in  1770,  and  his  flock.  It 
will  be  borne  in  mind  that  at  that  time  the 
church  was  the  town  and  the  town  the  church; 
even  so  small  a  matter  as  the  selling  of  a  pew 
in  the  sanctuary  being  a  subject  for  town 
action.  Mr.  Monson's  salary  was  only  a  trifle, 
and  was  partly  paid  in  "  fier-wood,"  but  there 
were  constant  arrearages  and  the  usual  barbed 
criticism  flew  back  and  forth  between  minister 
and  those  ministered  to.  The  little  church,  in 
which  there  was  not  a  single  young  person, 
omitted  to  celebrate  the  memorial  supper  for 
seven  years. 

Yet  during  these  Revolutionary  days,  marred 


Old-Time  Lenox  7 

by  unseemly  ecclesiastical  strife,  the  element 
of  patriotism  burned  with  a  brilliant  and  un- 
quenchable ardor.  As  soon  as  the  couriers 
from  Lexington  could  reach  this  region  of  the 
State,  Lenox  leaped  as  an  armed  man  into  the 
fray,  and  at  least  one  distinguished  soldier, 
Major-General  Paterson,  whose  life  has  just 
been  written  by  his  grandson,  the  late  Profes- 
sor Thomas  Egleston,  of  Columbia  University, 
was  one  of  its  mighty  contributions  to  that 
memorable  and  epoch-making  contest.  The 
non-importation  agreement  which  hangs  framed 
on  the  walls  of  the  Town  Library,  a  precious 
relic  of  that  heroic  age,  was  another.  Its  ap- 
propriations of  clothing  and  of  ammunition, 
and  its  sacrifice  of  men  whose  names  were  on 
the  military  roster,  were  others.  I  find  this 
entry  on  the  town  records  as  early  as  De- 
cember 25,  1775:  "Voted,  no  more  warrants 
shall  be  issued  in  his  majesty's  name  to  warn 
town-meetings."  On  June  3,  1777,  the  town 
directed  its  representative  at  the  General 
Court,  Boston,  to  "  use  your  [his]  utmost  abil- 
ities with  the  Assembly,  and  they  theirs  with 
the  Continental  Congress  that  if  they  think  it 
safe  to  declare  independent  of  Great  Britain 
we  will  stand  by  you  with  our  lives  and  for- 
tunes." And  Lenox  was  as  good  as  its  word. 


8  Lenox 

To-day  as  oft  as  Memorial  Day  returns,  the 
graves  of  the  soldier-dead  who  participated  in 
the  battles  of  Bunker  Hill,  Bennington,  Sara- 
toga, and  Princeton  are  decked,  with  others, 
in  the  ancient  churchyard  which  adjoins  the 
village  church;  a  cemetery  which  commands 
one  of  the  finest  prospects  in  the  world,  and 
of  which  Fanny  Kemble  said:  "  I  want  to  lie 
here  when  I  die,  that  upon  the  Resurrection 
morning  I  may  wake  up  with  this  scene  before 
me."  Here  for  more  than  a  century  the  dead 
have  been  laid  at  rest,  and  amidst  this  bivouac 
of  the  dead,  sleeping  on  their  arms  so  to 
speak,  are  those  who  threw  back  the  threat- 
ened invasion  of  red-coats  and  defied  the 
trained  battalions  of  the  mother-nation. 

Lenox  was,  indeed,  the  hot-bed  of  revolt. 
A  mountain  country  breeds  rebellion  against 
established  tyranny.  Wide  horizons,  even  like 
those  which  the  burgomasters  looked  out  upon 
from  their  dykes  in  ancient  Flanders  and  like 
those  which  the  Vaudois-Huguenots  viewed 
from  their  crags  and  clefts,  insensibly  enter 
into  national  character  to  broaden  and  enrich 
it.  The  education  of  a  far-reaching  landscape 
undermines  the  sway  of  tyrants  or  bigots. 
Lenox,  by  its  very  altitude  had  to  be  in 
sympathy  with  the  Revolution.  As  Channing 


fcs 


"Q 
s 

G 

a 

"So 


CQ         "^ 
L_J      r~* 


Old-Time  Lenox  9 

said  in  the  last  address  he  ever  delivered,— 
and  one,  too,  which  was  given  in  Lenox,  Au- 
gust i,  1842,  on  the  anniversary  of  emancipa- 
tion in  the  British  West  Indies  : 

"  Men  of  Berkshire  !  whose  nerves  and  souls  the  moun- 
tain-air has  braced,  do  not  these  forest-crowned  heights 
impart  something  of  their  own  power  and  loftiness  to 
men's  souls  ?  Should  our  Commonwealth  ever  be  in- 
vaded by  victorious  armies,  freedom's  last  asylum  would 
be  here.  Here  may  a  free  spirit,  may  a  reverence  for 
all  human  rights,  may  sympathy  for  all  the  oppressed, 
may  a  stern,  solemn  purpose  to  give  no  sanction  to  op- 
pression, take  stronger  and  stronger  possession  of  men's 
minds,  and  from  these  mountains  may  generous  impulses 
spread  far  and  wide." 

Lenox  entered  upon  its  career  as  the  county 
seat  in  1787,  twenty  years  after  its  incorpora- 
tion, owing  to  the  rapid  settlement  of  the 
county  northward  and  the  necessity  of  provid- 
ing a  capital  nearer  the  geographical  centre  of 
Berkshire.  Thence  on  the  village  seemed  a 
place  to  which  all  roads  led.  The  stage  and 
the  post-rider  always  had  to  include  the  coun- 
ty seat  in  the  itinerary  of  their  journeyings. 
From  a  copy  of  the  Berkshire  Chronicle  pub- 
lished in  Pittsfield  during  the  closing  years  of 
the  eighteenth  century  I  take  the  following 
advertisement  which  appeared  in  the  issue  of 
October  9,  1 788  : 


io  Lenox 

"  Zebulun  Herrick  respectfully  informs  the  public  that 
he  has  engaged  to  ride  as  a  post,  from  the  Printing  Office 
in  Pittsfield  to  the  Southern  part  of  the  county,  through 
the  towns  of  Lenox  (East- Road)  Lee,  Tyringham,  New 
Marlboro,  Sheffield,  Great  Barrington,  West-Stockbridge 
and  Richmond.  Those  gentlemen  desirous  of  furnishing 
themselves  with  the  Berkshire  Chronicle  in  those  several 
towns  may  be  supplied  regularly  and  reasonably.  Those 
gentlemen  who  shall  please  to  entrust  him  with  other 
business  may  depend  on  being  served  with  fidelity  and 
dispatch  by  their  humble  servant.  Z.  HERRICK." 

Zebulun,  doubtless,  thought  not  his  adver- 
tisement would  be  perused  by  curious  and 
interested  eyes  a  hundred  years  later,  or  that 
a  sympathetic  generation  in  the  twentieth  cen- 
tury would  bestow  immortality  upon  his  brief 
business  announcement.  It  was  his  custom 
to  take  his  pay  from  his  patrons  in  articles  of 
food  or  merchandise,  which  he  announced  he 
would  receive  in  place  of  the  coin  of  the  realm. 
Pittsfield  received  the  Boston  papers  of  Mon- 
day on  Wednesday  evening  in  those  days,  by 
another  post-route  from  Springfield  ;  on  Thurs- 
day the  news  from  these  metropolitan  journals 
was  republished  in  the  Berkshire  Chronicle 
and  then  with  horse  "swift  of  foot"  the 
doughty  Zebulun  dashed  southward  through 
the  county.  Lenox  eagerly  awaited  his  arrival 
and  took  the  deepest  interest  in  the  budget  of 


Old-Time  Lenox  n 

news  he  brought.  Zebulun  was  the  one  living 
bond  which  connected  the  region  with  the 
great,  wide  world.  The  country  newspaper 
then  was  a  purveyor  of  dignified,  solid  informa- 
tion, chronicling  as  it  did  events  of  world-wide 
importance,  instead  of  the  petty  items  of  gossip 
from  the  villages  of  the  vicinage. 

Later,  from  1828  to  1842,  Lenox  published 
its  own  paper,  known  by  various  names  as  it 
changed  ownership,  but  the  early  pattern  set 
by  the  Berkshire  Chronicle  was  scarcely  at  all 
departed  from.  An  examination  of  the  files 
of  the  papers  of  the  county  for  fifty  years  after 
the  Declaration  of  Independence  gives  scanty 
material  of  local  importance,  whereas  to-day 
the  country  newspaper  has  almost  nothing  of 
general  interest.  The  era  of  daily  metropolitan 
journals  brought  by  the  iron  horse  fresh  from 
the  presses  had  not  yet  come.  The  country 
newspaper  therefore  supplied  this  deficiency 
and  the  doings  of  national  importance  crowded 
into  small  space  the  happenings  of  town  and 
county. 

It  was  not  until  1838  that  the  peaceful  soli- 
tudes of  the  Housatonic  Valley  were  invaded 
by  the  din  of  the  locomotive  pursuing  its  tortu- 
ous way  around  the  spurs,  or  through  the 
passes,  of  the  mountains.  The  first  railroad  was 


1 2  Lenox 

known  as  the  Hudson  &  Berkshire  Railroad, 
opened  for  travel  to  West  Stockbridge  in  1838  ; 
and  three  years  later  to  Pittsfield.  Miss 
Catherine  Sedgwick,  the  author  of  Hope  Leslie 
and  many  other  tales,  describes  a  journey  she 
took  in  1835  from  Lenox  to  Boston,  going  by 
stage  to  Worcester,  where  the  cars  were  taken 
for  Boston.  Six  years  after  this  journey  rail- 
road connections  were  established  between 
Boston  and  Albany.  It  was  long  before  this, 
however,  that  railway  facilities  were  enjoyed 
along  the  Hudson  River,  and  as  early  as  1826 
the  question  of  a  railroad  from  some  point  in 
Berkshire  to  the  city  of  Hudson  was  mooted, 
the  first  Berkshire  County  railroad  convention 
being  held  in  Lenox,  November  16,  1827.  In 
1838  came  the  railroad  from  Hudson  to  West 
Stockbridge  as  has  been  said;  in  1842  the 
Housatonic  Railroad  was  opened  from  Bridge- 
port to  West  Stockbridge  via  Van  Deusenville, 
twelve  miles  south  of  Lenox ;  on  December 
21,  1841,  the  first  train  went  through  Pittsfield 
from  Albany  to  Boston  ;  but  it  was  not  until 
1850  that  a  railroad  actually  passed  through 
the  eastern  border  of  Lenox,  the  Pittsfield 
&  Stockbridge  Railroad,  connecting  with  the 
Housatonic  at  Van  Deusenville. 

Lenox  was  not,  however,  by  any  means  des- 


Old-Time  Lenox  13 

titute  of  means  of  egress  and  ingress.  Prior 
to,  and  even  during,  this  railroad  agitation  the 
village  enjoyed  the  most  elaborate  stage  con- 
nections, and  the  papers  of  the  period  are 
filled  with  the  advertisements  of  this  and  that 
line,  written  in  the  most  approved,  Jin  de  siecle 
style.  There  was  the  "  Hudson  and  Pittsfield  " 
line  which  passed  through  Lenox  every  morn- 
ing at  ten  o'clock,  and  by  way  of  Stockbridge, 
Great  Barrington,  Egremont,  and  Hillsdale 
reached  Hudson  at  5  P.  M.,  the  fare  being 
$1.75.  Returning  by  the  same  route  the  stage 
left  Hudson  at  5  A.  M.  and  reached  Lenox  at 
2.30  P.  M.  This  line  of  stages  made  connec- 
tions at  Hudson,  both  going  and  coming,  with 
the  New  York  boat.  Miss  Sedgwick  notes, 
September  n,  1832,  a  wonderful  quickness  in 
the  transmission  of  the  mails.  She  writes  her 
brother  Robert,  who  lived  in  New  York  City, 
on  that  date  :  "  I  received  your  letter  last  night 
at  eight  o'clock,  only  thirteen  hours  (!)  from 
New  York.  This  is  an  annihilation  of  space 
of  which  our  fathers  never  dreamed."  This  was 
doubtless  by  stage  and  railway  connections. 

Notice  that  at  this  time,  and  for  almost  ten 
years  afterwards,  it  was  thirty-one  hours  to 
Boston, —  by  stage  to  Springfield  in  one  day, 
and  from  there  on  the  next  to  Worcester, 


1 4  Lenox 

where  the  cars  were  taken, —  a  journey  lasting 
as  long  as  that  nowadays  from  New  York 
City  to  Saint  Paul !  The  stage  line  from 
Albany  to  Boston  passed  through  Stockbridge, 
six  miles  south  of  Lenox,  and  the  Albany  and 
Hartford  line  of  stages  passed  through  Great 
Barrington,  fourteen  miles  south  of  Lenox, 
but  with  these  lines  of  travel  the  stage  route 
from  Lenox  to  Hudson  intersected,  thus  en- 
abling the  residents  of  Berkshire's  capital  to 
reach  remote  and  widely  separated  places  by 
transfers  at  the  proper  points.  Northward 
there  was  a  line  of  stages  through  to  Benning- 
ton  from  Pittsfield.  In  1835  there  was  still 
another  stage  route  opened  from  Albany  to 
New  Haven,  passing  through  Lenox  and  Win- 
sted,  Conn.  These  were  the  main  trunk-lines, 
making  our  forefathers'  entrances  to  and  exits 
from  Lenox  not  so  difficult  after  all.  The  ar- 
rival and  departure  of  the  stages,  as  the  driver 
with  a  crack  of  the  whip  brought  his  turnout 
up  before  the  "  Berkshire  Coffee  House  "  (now 
Curtis  Hotel),  describing  what  Miss  Sedgwick 
happily  terms  "one  of  those  professional 
whirl-rounds,"  always  frightening,  if  not  en- 
dangering the  occupants  of  the  coach,  must 
have  been  one  of  the  daily  spectacles  on  which 
the  villagers  looked  with  the  keenest  interest. 


' i 


Old-Time  Lenox  15 

From  one  of  the  newspapers  published  in 
Lenox  (the  Massachusetts  Eagle,  September 
25,  1834),  I  take  the  following  account  of 
"  Lenox  in  Court  Week,"  one  of  the  few  local 
allusions,  but  valuable  as  the  report  of  an  eye- 
witness : 

"  The  goddess  has  occupied  her  throne  here  for  more 
than  a  week  past,  and  our  village  has  abounded  with 
judges  and  jurors,  lawyers  and  litigants,  prosecutors  and 
prosecuted.  To  us  who  live  in  the  country  the  occa- 
sion is  quite  imposing.  It  presents  us  with  a  vast  variety 
of  characters:  young  attorneys  in  the  bustle  of  new- 
found business  and  the  older  ones  assuming  more  and 
more  the  dignified  gravity  of  the  bench;  waiting  jury- 
men chatting  in  little  clusters  by  the  wayside;  worrying 
clients  complaining  of  sleepless  nights;  witnesses  of  all 
orders,  sizes,  sexes  and  ages;  spectators  trading  horses 
in  the  street,  and  politicians  smoking  over  government 
affairs  in  the  bar- room.  Our  boarding-houses  have  long 
tables  lined  on  both  sides  with  earnest  applicants,  and 
all  expect  more  business.  Messages  are  sent  and 
errands  done  between  one  end  of  the  county  and  the 
other,  business  accounts  are  settled,  plans  laid;  caucuses, 
conventions  and  singing-schools  agreed  upon;  news- 
papers subscribed  for,  and  distant  matters  in  general  ar- 
ranged for  the  ensuing  winter." 

This  is  probably  a  correct  picture  of  Lenox 
in  court  season  at  any  time  during  the  eighty- 
one  years  it  was  the  county  seat.  Modified 
by  the  changing  styles  of  dress  from  decade  to 


1 6  Lenox 

decade  we  can  almost   see  the  picture  as   if 
painted  on  canvas. 

It  is  small  wonder  that  Pittsfield,  the  grow- 
ing municipal  neighbor  of  Lenox,  hungered  to 
possess  all  this  excess  of  life  and  trade  by  be- 
coming the  county  seat  herself,  a  thing  she 
strove  mightily  to  do  from  1816  until  1868, 
when  she  succeeded.  It  is  little  wonder  that 
Lenox  struggled  to  retain  possession  of  the 
courts.  A  man  with  a  half-dollar  close  up  to 
his  eye  can  completely  shut  out  the  landscape. 
Lenox  failed  to  see  its  larger  future  because  its 
eye  was  solely  riveted  on  its  smaller  gains.  It 
knew  not  that  it  was  to  relinquish  its  promi- 
nence in  the  county  that  it  might  step  forth 
into  larger  renown.  Steadily  the  battle  waged 
between  Lenox  and  Pittsfield,  and  when  the 
new  Court-house  was  built  in  1816,  and  again 
when  it  was  enlarged  in  1855,  it  was  thought 
Pittsfield  would  accept  the  inevitable  and  cease 
to  try  to  rob  Lenox  of  its  prestige.  Not  so. 
Referendums  were  submitted  to  the  county 
for  its  decision  three  times  during  the  progress 
of  the  dispute,  on  the  question  :  "  Shall  the 
courts  be  removed  to  Pittsfield,"  and  every 
time  the  popular  decision  was  in  favor  of  their 
being  retained  in  Lenox.  The  county  was 
sown  an  inch  deep  with  campaign  literature 


Old-Time  Lenox  17 

on  both  sides  of  this  controversy.  It  was 
urged  that  Lenox  was  difficult  of  access  to 
towns  on  the  south  on  account  of  the  many 
ups  and  downs  of  the  road  leading  into  the 
village  from  that  quarter.  This  is  the  road 
that  now  leads  past  the  Lanier,  Sloane,  and 
Bishop  places.  Lenox  remedied  that  difficulty 
immediately  by  putting  another  road  of  easy 
grade  right  through  her  training-ground,  where 
now  the  Episcopal  church  stands,  to  meet  the 
other  hilly  road  at  a  point  two  miles  distant 
from  the  village.  This  new  highway  was  laid  out 
just  before  the  year  1850,  and  has  been  named 
"  Kemble  Street "  after  the  distinguished 
actress,  Mrs.  Fanny  Kemble-Butler,  who  lived 
on  it  in  the  house  named  by  her  "  The  Perch," 
and  still  so-called.  The  creation  of  this  new 
thoroughfare  for  travel  had  the  effect  of  caus- 
ing a  lull  in  the  agitation,  but  the  discontent 
organized  itself  again  when  the  question  of 
enlarging  the  Court-house  came  up  in  1855. 
The  soberest  and  most  judicious  minds  of  the 
Berkshire  capital  were  stirred  to  the  depths  by 
the  renewal  of  hostilities,  and  Lenox  made 
much  of  the  argument  that  as  it  was  already 
north  of  the  geographical  centre  by  some  rods, 
Pittsfield,  which  was  six  miles  farther  north, 
was  out  of  the  question. 


1 8  Lenox 

But  there  came  a  day  at  last  when  argu- 
ments were  useless.  It  was  becoming  from 
year  to  year  more  and  more  apparent  that  the 
summer  visitors  who  were  annually  being  at- 
tracted to  Lenox,  the  gem  of  the  Berkshires, 
were  quite  ready  that  the  courts  should  go  and 
with  them  the  clatter  and  chatter  and  barter 
on  the  streets,  the  tying  of  horses  in  the  pub- 
lic squares,  the  jostlings  on  the  sidewalks,  in 
short,  the  general  hubbub  and  confusion  of  a 
small  village  congested  with  life.  And  so  the 
decree  that  the  courts  should  be  removed  was 
procured  in  1868  —  not  so  many  years  ago  but 
that  memories  of  the  distinguished  bench  and 
bar  and  of  celebrated  cases  are  still  told  and 
retold  by  those  scarce  out  of  middle  life,  to  say 
nothing  of  the  treasury  of  reminiscences  pos- 
sessed by  the  oldest  inhabitant  with  reference 
to  the  proud  dignity  of  the  court-period  in  the 
history  of  the  village.  Many  still  remember 
the  jail,  that  shadow  which  stalks  in  the  wake 
of  Justice,  and  the  faces  looking  out  from  the 
windows  behind  the  bars  of  their  prison,  which 
stood  on  the  site  of  the  present  Schermer- 
horn  cottages  on  Main  Street.  A  still  more 
sombre  recollection,  the  executions  on  "  Gal- 
lows Hill,"  near  the  site  of  the  Robeson  place, 
has  faded  out  of  the  minds  of  all.  As  nothing 


Old-Time  Lenox  19 

but  the  good  has  in  it  the  power  of  perduring, 
the  bad  tending  to  its  own  decay  and  extinc- 
tion, so  the  memory  of  this  olden  period  has 
survived  only,  or  mainly,  in  sacred  reminis- 
cences and  holy  traditions  which  every  villager 
is  proud  to  rehearse. 

Closely  allied  with  the  early  history  of 
Lenox,  after  it  became  the  county  seat,  are 
two  events  which  had  the  most  incalculable 
influence  on  the  town  :  one,  the  installation  of 
the  Rev.  Samuel  Shepard  over  the  village 
church  in  1795,  his  signally  effective  pastorate 
lasting  a  half-century  ;  the  other,  the  establish- 
ment, in  1803,  of  Lenox  Academy,  a  far-famed 
institution  of  classical  learning  in  its  day.  To 
Dr.  Shepard  and  his  work  some  allusion  will 
be  made  later. 

Lenox  Academy  was  incorporated  by  an  act 
of  the  Legislature,  February  22,  1803,  and  was 
granted  a  township  in  Maine,  which  was  after- 
wards sold,  the  proceeds  being  added  to  the 
funds  of  the  institution.  The  building  still 
stands  with  the  date  1803  painted  on  its  an- 
cient belfry,  a  venerable,  unpretentious  struc- 
ture full  of  impressive  associations  and  used 
to-day  as  the  village  high-school.  It  is  almost 
too  hallowed  to  be  used  by  the  children  of  an 
iconoclastic  generation,  out  of  touch  with  the 


20  Lenox 

traditions  of  its  pure  classicism  and  simple  life. 
Its  surrounding  and  overarching  elms  have 
looked  down  on  succeeding  classes  as  they 
have  gone  forth  to  make  names  for  themselves 
in  the  catalogue  of  the  world's  worthies,  the 
Hon.  David  Davis,  of  Illinois,  President  Mark 
Hopkins,  Dr.  Henry  M.  Field,  Alexander  H. 
Stephens,  Vice-President  of  the  Confederacy, 
and  Governor  Yancy,  of  South  Carolina,  being 
among  the  number  of  those  who  have  here 
been  educated.  I  have  seen  many  of  the  pro- 
grammes of  Commencement  Day  in  that  olden 
institution.  It  was  an  all-day  affair  with 
speakers  from  a  convenient  hour  after  break- 
fast until  nearly  sundown  ;  a  sort  of  literary 
set-to,  or  intellectual  sweetness  long  drawn 
out.  The  Congregational  church  was  always 
the  scene  of  these  commencement  exercises, 
the  building  being  packed  to  overflowing. 

To  be  a  graduate  of  Lenox  Academy  was 
not  only  a  distinction,  it  was  a  passport  to 
any  college,  and  often  to  the  sophomore  class 
of  a  higher  institution  of  learning.  The  papers 
of  the  day  within  a  radius  of  a  hundred  miles 
refer  to  this  preparatory  school  with  glowing 
commendation.  Its  pupils  came  from  widely 
separated  portions  of  the  country  and  the  fame 
of  its  examinations,  which  were  of  unusual 


13 


•3    ^ 

•« 


Old-Time  Lenox  21 

rigidity,  attracted  visitors  from  long  distances, 
who  repaired  to  their  homes  to  spread  the  re- 
port of  them.  The  tuition  was  very  moderate, 
— $7  a  term  of  fourteen  weeks ;  and  board 
reached  the  not  exorbitant  sum  of  "$1.25  to 
$1.50  per  week  in  good  families."  The  tradi- 
tion has  survived  that  one  pupil  (long  a  distin- 
guished educator  and  only  lately  deceased) 
"  lived  like  a  dandy  because  he  had  rooms  at 
the  hotel,  for  which  he  paid  $2  per  week." 
Lenox  Academy  flourished  until  1866.  The 
men  whose  names  are  identified  with  this  insti- 
tution by  long  service  therein  as  instructors 
were  Levi  Glezen,  a  somewhat  eccentric  indi- 
vidual but  a  rare  disciplinarian  and  fine  teacher  ; 
John  Hotchkin,  long-time  its  widely  celebrated 
principal  and  the  founder  of  the  Lenox  Library  ; 
and  Matthew  Buckham,  now  the  President  of 
Vermont  University.  Among  Miss  Kemble's 
poems  is  one  with  the  title  "  To  the  young 
gentlemen  about  to  graduate  from  Lenox 
Academy,"  and  from  it  I  take  the  following 
lines  : 

"  Ye  were  ordained  to  do,  not  to  enjoy, 
To  suffer,  which  is  nobler  than  to  dare. 
A  sacred  burthen  is  this  life  ye  bear, 
Look  on  it,  lift  it,  bear  it  solemnly  ; 
Stand  up  and  walk  beneath  it  steadfastly. 


22  Lenox 

Fail  not  for  sorrow,  falter  not  for  sin, 
But  onward,  upward,  till  the  goal  ye  win. 
God  guard  you,  God  guide  you  on  your  way, 
Young  pilgrim  warriors  who  set  forth  to-day." 

But  Lenox  Academy  was  not  the  only  school 
of  classical  learning  within  the  township.  Here 
was  located  also  a  school  for  girls,  managed 
continuously  during  its  existence  from  1828 
until  1864  by  Mrs.  Charles  Sedgwick,  the  wife 
of  the  Clerk  of  the  Courts,  who  was  himself 
one  of  the  most  prominent  and  widely  respected 
men  of  the  region,  and  whose  sister,  the  gifted 
novelist,  Catherine  Sedgwick,  made  her  home 
for  many  years  in  her  brother's  family  at  Lenox. 
A  rare  home  was  this  graced  by  the  presence 
of  Catherine,  who,  though  often  in  New  York, 
where  she  always  moved  in  the  most  literary 
circles  of  the  metropolis,  spent  her  summers 
regularly  with  Charles,  in  whose  house  she  had 
a  wing  somewhat  apart  by  herself,  yet  ever 
accessible  to  all.  In  another  building  on  the 
same  property  Mrs.  Charles  Sedgwick  kept 
her  famous  school;  she  herself  an  authoress 
who  had  written  several  books  for  children. 
It  is  not  difficult  to  imagine  that  such  a  home 
of  culture  and  refinement,  honored  and  en- 
livened as  it  was  by  the  presence  of  Catherine, 
who  wrought  here  at  her  literary  tasks,  and 


Old-Time  Lenox  23 

who  was  the  correspondent  of  Sismondi,  Miss 
Martineau,  Bryant,  Irving,  and  many  others  of 
the  choicest  intellects  of  this  and  foreign  lands, 
would  be  a  lodestone  drawing  with  irresistible 
attraction  the  young  women  who  sought  the 
advantages  of  an  education.  Among  the  pu- 
pils of  this  school  at  one  time  Harriet  Hosmer 
was  enrolled. 

Many  are  the  references  in  the  books  of  the 
day  to  this  celebrated  school  for  girls.  Wil- 
liam Cullen  Bryant,  who  practised  the  profes- 
sion of  the  law  in  Great  Barrington  from  1816 
until  1825,  and  who  doubtless  often  appeared 
in  the  Lenox  courts,  gives  us  a  pen-picture  of 
Miss  Sedgwick  at  a  later  period  of  her  life, 
when  she,  the  distinguished  author  of  Hope 
Leslie  and  Redwood,  and  he,  the  maker  of 
poems  which  were  already  aflame  with  immor- 
tality, were  closely  associated  in  the  literary 
companionships  of  New  York  City.  There  in 
the  homes  of  her  distinguished  brothers,  Robert 
and  Henry,  men  of  eminence  in  the  legal  pro- 
fession, Catherine  found  such  constant  visitors 
as  Fenimore  Cooper,  Sands,  Eastburn,  Hill- 
house,  Halleck,  Bleeker,  and  Morse  and  Cole 
the  artists.  Bryant  renewed  and  cemented 
in  the  metropolis  the  friendship  begun  in 
the  Berkshires,  and  he  describes  her  as 


24  Lenox 

"  well-formed,  with  regular  features,  eyes  beam- 
ing with  benevolence,  a  pleasing  smile,  a  soft 
voice,  and  gentle  and  captivating  manners." 
Such  a  member  of  the  Lenox  home  would  be  to 
the  young  ladies  who  were  there  pursuing  their 
studies  a  source  of  unfailing  interest,  an  ob- 
ject of  devotion,  an  inspiration  to  high  ideals. 
It  is  a  pleasure  to  stand  near  the  wing  of  this 
simple,  old-fashioned  dwelling,  until  recently 
used  as  the  residence  of  descendants  of  the 
Sedgwick  family,  to  look  off  upon  the  superb 
view  it  commands  down  the  valley  for  miles, 
to  feel  one's  self  invested  with  and  possessed 
by  the  memories  of  other  days, — to  see  bright 
young  faces  here  and  there  on  porch  and  lawn, 
and  now  and  then  moving  among  them,  with 
something  of  an  air  of  mystery,  the  form  of 
one  who  was  a  fine  specimen  of  the  New 
England  gentlewoman. 

Two  institutions  of  learning  in  the  town,  the 
presence  from  time  to  time  of  the  court,  the 
residence  of  the  county  officials,  the  superior 
advantages  of  a  county  seat  for  great  county 
gatherings,  the  publication  of  a  weekly  news- 
paper, a  bookstore  and  a  bindery,  a  real  live  au- 
thoress moving  along  the  quiet  village  streets, 
a  prevailing  type  of  high  intelligence  in  the  vil- 
lage folk  themselves — these  made  Lenox  a  town 


Old-Time  Lenox  25 

of  superior  intellectual  attractions,  as  it  was 
also  of  rare  physical  beauty.  It  was  in  the  very 
nature  of  things  impossible  that  such  a  moun- 
tain village  could  long  remain  undiscovered  by 
men  and  women  of  letters  seeking  rest  and 
inspiration  in  its  picturesqueness,  in  the  tonic 
of  its  fresh  pure  breezes,  and  in  the  quiet  vil- 
lage life  pervaded  with  so  high  an  order  of 
culture  and  refinement.  Their  writings  show 
the  impression  that  Lenox  made  upon  them, 
and  to  these  records,  as  well  as  to  those  of  an 
older  literature,  we  do  not  turn  in  vain  for 
pictures  of  "  old-time  Lenox."  Hither  in  1 798, 
and  again  in  1 799,  came  President  Dwight,  of 
Yale  College,  on  his  way  from  New  Haven  to 
Niagara.  I  find  this  entry  in  the  voluminous 
jottings  of  his  travels: 

"Sept.  21,  1798. 

"  Lenox  is  the  shire  town  of  the  county,  and  is  princi- 
pally built  on  a  single  street,  upon  a  ridge  declining 
rather  pleasantly  to  the  East  and  to  the  West,  but  dis- 
agreeably interrupted  by  several  valleys  crossing  it  at 
right  angles.  The  soil  and  buildings  are  good,  and  the 
town  exhibits  many  proofs  of  prosperity.  The  public 
buildings  consist  of  a  church,  a  Court  House,  a  school 
house,  and  a  gaol." 

Later,  in  1819,  Prof.  Benjamin  Silliman,  the 
distinguished  physicist,  came  to  Lenox  on  a 
carriage  drive  from  Hartford  to  Quebec.  His 


26  Lenox 

picture  of  this  village  and  the  Berkshires  is 
vivid.  "  Sept.  1819  : — It  was  quite  dark  be- 
fore we  arrived  at  Sandisfield,  but  our  road 
was  good  and  the  welcome  light  of  the  inn  at 
length  caught  our  eyes.  We  slept  in  a  great 
vacant  ball-room."  Sandisfield  is  a  "deserted 
village  "  now,  but  then  it  was  one  of  the  chief 
towns  of  the  county  in  size  and  thrift,  rivalling 
Pittsfield.  The  next  day  the  distinguished 
traveller  reached  Lenox,  of  which  he  writes  as 
follows  : 

"  Lenox,  the  capital  of  Berkshire  County,  is  a  town 
of  uncommon  beauty.  It  is  built  on  a  high  hill  on  two 
streets  intersecting  each  other  nearly  at  right  angles.  It 
is  composed  of  handsome  houses  which  with  the  exception 
of  a  few  of  brick  are  painted  a  brilliant  white  ;  it  is  orna- 
mented with  three  neat  houses  of  public  worship,  one  of 
which  is  large  and  handsome  and  stands  upon  a  hill 
higher  than  the  town  and  a  little  remote  from  the  centre 
[the  present  Congregational  church].  Lenox  has  a  jail,  a 
woollen  manufactory,  an  academy  of  considerable  size, 
and  a  Court  House  of  brick  in  fine  style  of  architecture, 
fronted  with  pillars.  Lenox  has  fine  mountain  air,  and 
is  surrounded  by  equally  fine  mountain  scenery.  It  is  a 
gem  among  the  mountains." 

Pressing  on  towards  New  Lebanon,  at  a 
point  where  the  road  steadily  rises  and  then 
curves,  Prof.  Silliman  pauses  for  a  last  look  at 
Lenox  before  it  is  lost  to  view. 


Old-Time  Lenox  27 

"  What  a  fine  retrospect  we  had,"  he  continues, 
"  mountains  receding  one  behind  another  some  of 
whose  summits  were  struggling  through  clouds  and 
mist  and  rain  in  obscure  and  gloomy  grandeur.  Beau- 
tifully contrasted  with  these  was  the  bright  cluster  of 
buildings  in  Lenox,  in  which  turrets  and  Gothic  pinna- 
cles and  Grecian  pillars  were  conspicuous  and  seemed 
like  a  string  of  pearls  upon  the  brow  and  declivity  of  the 
hill  now  sunk  to  one  of  moderate  elevation." 

Upon  Miss  .Sedgwick,  who  came  here  after 
the  breaking  up  of  her  home  in  Stockbridge, 
Lenox  made  a  disagreeable  impression  at  first, 
but  that  may  have  been  due  to  the  intense 
regret  she  felt  in  leaving  her  native  town. 
When  the  fog  of  homesickness  cleared  away 
she  no  longer  saw  things  distorted.  "  It  is  a 
bare  and  ugly  little  village  "  she  writes  in  1821, 
"  dismally  bleak  and  uncouth,  reached  .only 
after  six  miles  of  steep  and  rough  driving " ; 
but  in  1824,  November  ist,  she  thus  solilo- 
quizes : 

"As  I  stand  at  the  window  and  gaze  on  the  hills  that 
stretch  before  me  in  every  variety  of  height  and  posi- 
tion, the  sun  sends  his  gleamy  smiles  along  their  sum- 
mits pleasantly  and  the  little  lake  that  sparkles  in  the 
valley,  now  that  its  leafy  veil  has  fallen,  is  plainly  seen. 
I  perceive  many  beauties  that  I  have  been  before  quite 
blind  to." 

Afterwards  during  the  many  years  of  her 
residence  in  Lenox  the  fondest  attachment  to 


28  Lenox 

the  place  possessed  her,  and  when  she  was 
away  from  her  home  in  the  Berkshires,  her 
mind  continually  reverts  to  the  hill-country. 
"  I  long  to  have  my  eye  rest  upon  those 
mountains,"  she  writes  to  the  dear  ones  in 
Lenox.  It  was  she  who  attracted  to  this 
region  those  gifted  Englishwomen,  Miss  Mar- 
tineau,  Mrs.  Jameson,  and  Miss  Kemble ;  and 
she  it  was,  also,  who  lured  hither  William 
Ellery  Channing,  who  spent  the  last  summer 
of  his  life  amid  these  picturesque  heights. 
Who  would  not  have  prized  the  opportunity 
of  seeing  these  literary  yoke-fellows  in  their 
rambles  and  rides  and  drives  together !  Of 
that  last  summer  of  Channing 's  life  among 
the  hills,  Miss  Sedgwick  has  left  us  scant  data 
in  her  correspondence,  but  enough  to  show 
how  delightfully  the  days  passed  in  the  un- 
conventionality  and  simplicity  of  country  life, 
in  the  intercourse  of  lofty  minds  and  gifted 
spirits,  and  in  the  responsiveness  of  nature  to 
the  varying  moods  of  human  thought.  Writ- 
ing to  Dr.  Dewey  of  the  events  in  Channing's 
visit  she  says  : 

"  He  seemed  to  have  thrown  off  every  shackle,  to  be 
rid  of  his  precision  ;  he  was  affectionate  and  playful 
with  the  young  people  ;  he  liked  our  anti-convention- 
alism, our  free  ways  of  going  on  ;  he  enjoyed,  as  if  he 


Old-Time  Lenox  29 

had  come  home  to  his  father's  house,  the  forever- 
changing  beauty  of  our  hills  and  valleys,  and  he  went 
away  with  more  than  half  a  promise  to  return  to  us 
next  summer." 

Lenox  was  the  summer  home  of  Mrs.  Fanny 
Kemble  during  the  many  years  of  her  sojourn 
in  America,  and  her  books  bear  testimony  to 
the  place  this  mountain  village  held  in  her 
affections.  It  was  with  her,  "  love  at  first 
sight,"  and  it  did  not  wear  off  in  after  years. 
Coming  to  Lenox  in  1836  she  so  identified 
herself  with  the  town  as  to  buy  property  in 
1851,  participating  in  village  affairs,  knowing, 
and  known  of,  all.  It  cannot  be  said  that 
Lenox  received  kindly  at  first  the  advent  of 
an  actress.  One  of  the  papers  of  the  day, 
published  in  the  village  the  first  year  of  her 
stay  here,  was  unkind  enough  to  say:  "  Miss 
Kemble  lost  all  delicacy  of  sex,  strolling  about 
the  country."  The  mimic  world  before  the 
footlights  was  too  great  a  contrast  to  the  stern 
realism  of  New  England  to  make  the  entrance 
of  an  actress  into  the  midst  of  it  either  com- 
prehensible or  enjoyable.  Behind  the  mask 
of  Comedy  the  plain  people  of  that  day  saw 
only  the  features  of  "  the  great  adversary." 
One  can  scarcely  think  of  a  greater  contradic- 
tion in  terms  than  the  village  pastor  and  the 


30  Lenox 

world-renowned  actress  meeting  on  the  streets 
of  the  quiet,  conservative  town.  The  germ 
of  an  interesting  romance  lies  enfolded  here. 
But  if  Mrs.  Kemble's  calling  surrounded  her 
with  an  air  of  mystery  in  the  estimation  of 
the  village  folk,  her  phenomenal  eccentricities 
of  manner,  dress,  and  speech  only  thickened 
the  veil  which  screened  her  from  any  true 
view.  Little  did  she  care  for  these  misunder- 
standings, for  she  revelled  in  the  beautiful 
scenery  which  fed  her  soul  and  of  which  until 
her  death  only  a  few  years  ago  she  retained 
the  most  distinct  and  fond  impressions. 

"  I  have  been  spending  a  month  with  my  friends  in  a 
beautiful  hill-region  of  the  State  of  Massachusetts,"  she 
writes  October  5,  1836,  "  and  I  never  looked  abroad 
upon  the  woods  and  valleys  and  lakes  and  moun- 
tains without  thinking  how  great  a  privilege  it  would 
be  to  live  in  the  midst  of  such  beautiful  things." 
"  Here  I  am,"  she  writes  again  August  24,  1838,  "  on 
the  top  of  a  hill  in  the  village  of  Lenox  in  what 
its  inhabitants  tautologically  call  Berkshire  County, 
Massachusetts,  with  a  view  before  my  window  which 
would  not  disgrace  the  Jura  itself  !  Immediately  slop- 
ing before  me,  the  green  hillside,  on  the  summit  of 
which  stands  the  house  I  am  inhabiting,  sinks  softly 
down  to  a  small  valley,  filled  with  thick,  rich  wood,  in 
the  centre  of  which  a  little  jewel-like  lake  lies  gleaming. 
Beyond  this  valley  the  hills  rise  one  above  another  to 
the  horizon,  where  they  scoop  the  sky  with  a  broken, 


Old-Time  Lenox  31 

irregular  outline  that  the  eye  dwells  on  with  ever  new 
delight,  as  its  colors  glow  or  vary  with  the  ascending  or 
descending  sunlight,  and  all  the  shadowy  procession  of 
the  clouds.  Ever  since  early  morning,  troops  of  cloud 
and  wandering  showers  of  rain  and  the  all-prevailing 
sunbeams  have  chased  each  other  over  the  wooded 
slopes,  and  down  into  the  dark  hollow  where  the  lake 
lies  sleeping,  making  a  pageant  far  finer  than  the  one 
Prospero  raised  for  Ferdinand  and  Miranda  on  his 
desert  island." 

This  was  the  view  which  could  then  be  ob- 
tained from  the  hotel  where  Mrs.  Kemble 
stayed  during  the  early  days  of  her  coming  to 
Lenox;  a  view  which  now  is  shut  out  at  that 
point  by  densely  spreading  foliage.  We  would 
not  wish  to  intimate  that  the  Lenox  folk  of 
the  present  are  tree-worshippers,  yet  some  of 
the  beautiful  streets  in  the  village  once  com- 
manding vast  prospects  have  been  transformed 
into  mere  umbrageous  corridors,  lanes  be- 
tween trees  two  and  three  rows  deep.  It  was 
not  so  in  Mrs.  Kemble's  time,  and  here  she 
thoroughly  yielded  herself  up  to  the  abandon 
of  unconventional,  recreative  life.  Every  day 
she  rode  ten  or  twelve  miles  before  breakfast, 
her  horse  being  brought  to  the  door  of  the 
"  Red  Inn,"  as  she  calls  it,  at  seven  o'clock. 
To  Mrs.  Jameson  she  writes  of  her  manner 
of  life  as  follows  :  "  We  laugh,  we  sing,  we  talk, 


32  Lenox 

we  play,  we  discuss,  we  dance,  we  ride,  drive, 
walk,  run,  scramble,  and  saunter,  and  amuse 
ourselves  extremely;  and  we  enjoy  every  day 
delightful  intercourse  with  the  Sedgwicks." 
Yet  was  it  not  all  an  idle  holiday.  Mrs. 
Kemble  gave  Shakespearian  readings  in  the 
public  hall  for  charitable  objects,  and  often  in 
private  at  Mrs.  Sedgwick's  before  very  select 
and  critical  audiences.  Mrs.  Kemble's  resi- 
dence in  Lenox  is  vividly  remembered  by 
many,  and  the  memory  of  it  has  been  perpetu- 
ated by  naming  a  street  in  her  honor. 

In  the  spring  of  the  year  preceding  that  in 
which  Fanny  Kemble  bought  property  in 
Lenox,  the  author  of  The  Scarlet  Letter  — 
a  book  which  had  just  come  out  and  was 
making  a  great  stir  —  came  to  this  hill-country 
and  took  a  house  on  Stockbridge  Bowl,  a 
beautiful  sheet  of  water  lying  less  than  two 
miles  to  the  west  of  Lenox  village.  The 
house,  a  little  frame  cottage,  was  standing 
until  within  a  few  years.  Its  loss  by  fire  ten 
years  since  was  a  distinct  loss  among  the 
many  objects  of  interest  in  this  region,  but 
the  site  is  still  hallowed,  and  although  just 
over  the  line  in  the  township  of  Stockbridge, 
Hawthorne  and  all  those  who  have  subse- 
quently built  elegant  villas  in  this  part  of 


Old-Time  Lenox  33 

the  town  have  been  solely  identified  with 
Lenox  life.  Hawthorne's  cottage  comman- 
ded one  of  the  most  picturesque  prospects 
in  all  this  country  of  charming-  views  and 
vistas.  The  little  red  house  was  the  scene  of 
Titanic  labors.  Here  were  written  The  House 
of  the  Seven  Gables,  Wonder  Book,  and  the 
plot  of  The  Blithedale  Romance,  besides  many 
of  the  jottings  for  his  American  Notes,  and 
the  fascinating  letters  which  have  been  com- 
piled by  his  distinguished  children  in  separate 
volumes. 

"  It  was  the  period,"  says  Julian  Hawthorne, 
"  of  my  father's  greatest  literary  activity."  The 
House  of  the  Seven  Gables  was  written  in  five 
months  of  unremitting  toil,  and  then  Haw- 
thorne, to  use  Julian's  words,  "allowed  himself 
a  vacation  of  about  four  months,"  during  which 
he  devoted  himself  to  the  entertainment  of  his 
children  and  the  enjoyment  of  the  region, 
making  that  summer  of  1851  memorable  ever 
after  in  the  experiences  of  his  little  family. 
Charming  is  Julian's  picture  of  those  Lenox 
days: 

"  He  made  us  boats  to  sail  on  the  lake,  and  kites  to  fly 
in  the  air;  he  took  us  fishing  and  flower-gathering,  and 
tried  to  teach  us  swimming.  In  the  autumn  we  would 
go  nutting  with  my  father  and  he  would  climb  to  the 


34  Lenox 

topmost  branches,  swaying  and  soaring  high  aloft,  a 
delightful  mystery  and  miracle.  It  was  all  a  splendid 
holiday,  and  I  cannot  remember  when  our  father  was 
not  our  playmate  or  when  we  ever  desired  any  other 
playmate  than  he." 

This  section  of  the  town  is,  indeed,  alive  with 
the  memory  of  Hawthorne.  Here  one  seeks 
to  reproduce  all  this,  to  fancy  the  rather  deli- 
cate-looking man  of  hollow  eye  and  thought- 
ful mien,  to  the  ordinary  villager  somewhat 
unsociable,  as  he  trudged  to  and  from  the 
village,  where  in  the  post-office  he  received 
and  corrected  his  proofs;  to  imagine  him,  in  a 
picture  of  his  own  creating,  sauntering  out  of 
the  little  cottage  down  the  road,  a  child  on 
each  side,  now  going  for  flowers,  and  now  to  a 
neighboring  farmhouse  for  milk,  along  a  path 
which  he  facetiously  styled  "  the  milky  way." 

To  that  cosy  home  by  the  lake,  bright  with 
pictures,  pervaded  with  the  warmth  and  glad- 
ness of  Hawthorne's  personality,  inspirited 
from  without  by  the  fascinating  scenery,  Oliver 
Wendell  Holmes  came  now  and  then,  riding 
down  from  Pittsfield,  also  James  T.  Fields, 
who  drove  up  from  Stockbridge.  Hither 
came  other  friends  quite  as  distinguished, — 
James  Russell  Lowell,  E.  P.  Whipple,  G.  P.  R. 
James,  and  many  more  of  the  literati  of  the 


Old-Time  Lenox  35 

day.  One  knows  not  whether  to  look  within 
the  home  or  without  it,  for  the  more  engaging 
and  enrapturing  beauty.  Which  glows  the 
more  warmly,  the  loveliness  of  landscape  or 
the  group  of  masterful  intellects  there  col- 
lected ?  We  may  say,  en  passant,  that  it  was 
in  the  little  red  house,  during  this  sojourn  of 
her  father,  that  Rose  (Mrs.  Lathrop)  was 
born.  In  her  Memories  of  Hawthorne  Mrs. 
Lathrop  has  added  not  a  little  to  our  know- 
ledge of  the  details  of  her  father's  stay  in  the 
Berkshires.  To  the  gate  of  the  little  red 
house,  which  stood  very  near  the  road,  Fanny 
Kemble  would  ride  up,  grab  the  little  Julian, 
put  him  astride  the  pommel,  and  canter  off  fu- 
riously, and  after  a  mad  gallop  down  the  road 
a  piece  would  return,  depositing  the  young- 
ster at  the  gate  again,  saying  "  Take  your 
boy,  Julian  the  Apostate!"  Mrs.  Hawthorne 
writes  thus  to  her  mother,  September,  1851: 
"It  is  very  singular  how  much  more  we  are 
in  the  midst  of  society  in  Lenox  than  we  were 
in  Salem,  and  all  literary  persons  seem  settling 
around  us."  G.  P.  R.  James  was  in  Stock- 
bridge  and  Herman  Melville  was  in  Pittsfield. 
The  Hawthorne  home  was  a  centre  of  life, 
light,  and  gladness.  For  nearly  two  years, 
winter  and  summer  alike,  it  formed  a  marked 


36  Lenox 

addition  to  the  daily  life  of  Lenox  and  was  only 
broken  up  by  the  rigorous  severities  of  the 
colder  seasons  in  these  mountain  altitudes  — 
too  rigorous,  indeed,  for  such  a  frail  constitution 
as  that  possessed  by  Nathaniel  Hawthorne. 

Not  far  from  Hawthorne's  cottage  was  the 
house  where  for  many  years  Charlotte  Cush- 
man  resided,  and  far  on  the  other  side  of  the 
town  was  the  property  bought  by  Henry  Ward 
Beecher  in  1853,  now  crowned  with  a  magnifi- 
cent villa  and  still  known  as  "  Beecher  Hill." 
One  has  but  to  catch  up  Star  Papers  to  per- 
ceive the  undisguised  joy,  the  exuberant  ecstasy 
with  which  Lenox  filled  the  soul  of  the  great 
preacher.  His  house,  a  simple  farm-dwelling, 
stood  far  over  in  the  eastern  part  of  the  town, 
where  a  vast  prospect  is  obtained  up  as  well 
as  down  the  Housatonic  Valley.  As  Mr. 
Beecher  said  :  "  By  a  mere  roll  of  the  eyeball 
I  can  look  from  Greylock  on  the  north  to  the 
dome  of  the  Taghconic  Mountains  on  the  south, 
a  range  of  sixty  miles  from  peak  to  peak." 
Greylock  is  the  highest  mountain  in  the  State, 
rising  to  the  height  of  3500  feet,  and  at  its 
base  is  Williamstown,  where  Williams  College 
is  located  ;  and  the  "  Dome,"  sometimes  called 
Mt.  Everett,  is  2800  feet  high,  its  summit  be- 
ing the  home  of  the  Goodale  sisters,  much  of 


•<>>  ^ 
Q  ^** 
^M  V. 


Old-Time  Lenox  37 

whose  verse  has  been  produced  here  on  what 
they  aptly  term  "  Sky  Farm."  Mr.  Beecher 
revelled  in  this  extended  view  day  by  day.  He 
freely  confesses  that  he  bought  his  property  in 
Lenox,  not  to  work  as  a  farm, — though  such  it 
was, — but  to  "  lie  down  upon."  He  always  car- 
ried a  book  in  his  hand,  "  not  to  read,  but  to 
muse  over,"  he  said,  as  he  sallied  forth  over  his 
farm,  finding  here  and  there  convenient  places 
to  sit  or  "  lie  down  "  and  dream.  The  presence 
in  town  of  so  great  a  preacher  was  not  per- 
mitted to  pass  by  unimproved,  and  sometimes 
his  voice  was  heard  in  the  village  church.  It 
was  he  who  said,  standing  in  the  porch  of  the 
church-on-the-hill,  and  surveying  the  beautiful 
prospect  which  might  then  be  obtained  from 
that  ancient  doorway,  but  which  now  has  un- 
fortunately been  shut  out  by  a  luxuriant  forest- 
growth  :  "  I  had  rather  be  a  doorkeeper  in 
this  house  of  my  God,  than  to  dwell  in  the 
tents  of  wickedness." 

Like  modest  strawberries  hidden  in  the  tall 
grass,  many  other  allusions  to  Lenox  may  be 
found  in  the  varied  literature  of  America,  all  the 
way  from  the  Travels  of  the  first  President 
Dwight  to  the  romances  of  Mrs.  Burton  Har- 
rison, who  has  passed  many  summers  in  the 
town,  but  these  will  be  the  theme  of  a  separate 


38  Lenox 

chapter.  We  have  simply  selected  some  refer- 
ences which  came  within  the  scope  of  our  sub- 
ject, "  Old-time  Lenox,"  and  these  allusions 
serve  the  double  purpose  of  enabling  us  to  see 
an  earlier  Lenox  through  the  eyes  of  those 
who  have  been  "  strangers  within  the  gates," 
as  well  as  to  see  the  distinguished  visitors 
themselves  who  from  time  to  time  have  formed 
a  part  of  the  very  life  of  the  town  itself. 

Perhaps  this  is  as  good  a  place  as  any  to 
refer  to  the  village  church,  and  the  exception- 
ally protracted  pastorate  of  its  second  minister, 
the  Rev.  Samuel  Shepard,  D.D.,  who  was  its 
minister  from  1795  until  1846.  Church  and 
State  were  welded  into  one  throughout  Mass- 
achusetts until  1834  and  therefore  the  parish 
was  the  town.  Other  churches  there  were  in 
Lenox  from  an  early  period,  but  the  Congre- 
gational being  a  part  of  the  State  regime  was 
the  church,  as  was  the  case  throughout  all  New 
England.  It  was  indissolubly  intertwined  with 
the  life  and  thought  of  the  people.  Demo- 
cratic in  spirit  and  polity,  it  was  decidedly 
autocratic  within  its  own  province.  Samuel 
Shepard  was  called  to  the  pastorate  of  the  vil- 
lage Congregational  church  when  a  mere  boy 
just  out  of  Yale  College,  where  he  graduated 
in  1793.  He  died  with  the  harness  on,  having 


Old-Time  Lenox  39 

ministered  continuously  in  the  same  place  for 
fifty  years  and  a  few  months.  He  was  installed 
at  an  open-air  service  just  outside  the  church 
door ;  his  grave  is  near  the  identical  spot  of 
ground  where  that  service  was  held,  and  is  sur- 
mounted with  a  monument  on  which  is  this  ap- 
propriate verse:  "  Remember  the  words  which 
I  spake  unto  you  while  I  was  yet  with  you." 
The  village  is  filled  with  the  story  of  this 
man,  who  lived  to  baptize  the  great-grand- 
children of  his  first  converts,  and  who  saw  the 
promise  of  the  Lord  to  "  his  children,  and 
their  seed  and  their  seed's  seed "  fulfilled. 
Before  me  lie  the  installation  sermon  preached 
by  Rev.  Cyprian  Strong  when  Samuel  Shepard 
was  "  ordained  to  the  pastoral  office  over  the 
church  in  Lenox,"  April  30,  1795,  and  the 
semi-centennial  sermon  of  Dr.  Shepard  him- 
self, preached  April  30,  1845,  summarizing 
the  fifty  years  of  his  labors  in  the  parish. 
The  whole  number  of  persons  received  into 
the  church  during  his  ministry  up  to  that  time 
was  815.  He  officiated  at  969  baptisms,  and 
953  funerals,  within  the  limits  of  the  town. 
He  witnessed  ten  "  special  manifestations  of 
the  divine  influence,  or  revivals,"  during  which 
scores  and  even  hundreds  were  gathered  into 
the  church.  He  was  a  man  of  cheerful,  sunny 


40  Lenox 

temperament  and  social  qualifications,  some- 
what different  from  the  prevailing  type  of  the 
clergy  of  the  period.  An  earnest  preacher 
with  a  peculiarly  deep,  sonorous  voice,  his  ser- 
mons were  listened  to  with  more  than  formal 
attention.  He  prayed  always  with  his  eyes 
wide  open,  and  some  good  stories  have  sur- 
vived concerning  this  peculiarity  of  the  beloved 
pastor.  Once,  it  is  said,  while  engaged  in 
prayer,  his  eye  caught  an  amusing  spectacle  in 
the  gallery.  It  was  the  sight  of  a  naughty  youth 
having  a  sly  bit  of  fun  all  by  himself.  The 
day  being  a  cold  one  outside,  and  the  church 
being  insufficiently  heated,  this  youth  was 
holding  up  his  hands  near  the  red  hair  of  the 
person  seated  immediately  in  front,  as  if  be- 
fore a  fire,  and  rubbing  his  fingers  into  a  glow  J 
It  is  said  that  the  praying  pastor  could  not 
repress  a  smile.  Dr.  Shepard  was  a  prominent 
man  in  the  county,  being  one  of  the  trustees  of 
Williams  College,  and  his  services  in  public 
movements  throughout  the  State  were  sought. 
He  lives  imperishably  in  the  hearts  of  the  peo- 
ple of  Lenox,  as  do  two  other  pastors  of  the 
same  church  in  later  years  :  the  Rev.  E.  K. 
Alden,  D.D.,  long-time  the  Secretary  of  the 
American  Board  of  Missions;  and  the  Rev.  C. 
H.  Parkhurst,  D.D.,  now  and  for  the  last 


Old-Tfme  Lenox  41 

twenty-two  years  the  distinguished  pastor  of 
Madison  Square  Presbyterian  Church,  New 
York  City. 

There  is  no  time  to  speak  of  the  great 
county  gatherings  which  were  wont  to  be  held 
in  Lenox  because  it  was  the  county  seat. 
Time  and  space  would  fail  me  to  relate  the 
tithe-part  of  the  mass-meetings  held  here  in 
the  interest  of  temperance,  music,  literary 
culture,  Bible-distribution,  matters  of  public 
import  affecting  the  western  part  of  the  com- 
monwealth, politics,  and  the  like.  Lenox  as 
the  shire-town  felt  a  natural  right  of  priority 
in  the  matter  of  these  colossal  conventions, 
and  most  incalculable  must  have  been  their 
effect.  The  great  temperance  revival  which 
swept  the  country  in  the  thirties  found  in 
Berkshire  a  hearty  response.  Mass-meetings 
of  citizens  from  all  parts  of  the  county,  of  phy- 
sicians and  hotel-keepers,  were  here  attended, 
having  to  do  with  this  subject  alone.  Berk- 
shire physicians  here  adopted  the  following 
resolution  :  "  We  shall  hereafter  not  consider 
it  a  mark  of  civility  or  hospitality  to  partake 
of  this  insidious  and  baneful  poison  ;  but  will 
say  when  exhausted  with  fatigue  and  watching, 
1  Give  us  food  and  simple  drinks  such  as  na- 
ture craves.' " 


42  Lenox 

It  would  seem  from  a  careful  examination 
of  the  county  papers  that  the  chief  subjects  of 
thought  for  ten  years  were  temperance  and 
sacred  music.  Great  was  the  day  when  Lowell 
Mason  appeared  in  Lenox  to  hold  a  musical 
convention.  The  spacious  court-room  was 
crowded  to  overflowing.  Second  to  none  in 
the  place  it  held  in  shaping  town-thought  was 
the  village  lyceum  which  met  for  a  great  many 
years  from  week  to  week  and  was  addressed 
by  local  professional  men  and  by  distinguished 
visitors  on  all  conceivable  sorts  of  subjects, 
the  address  being  followed  by  open  parliament 
or  debate.  The  Fourth  of  July  was  observed 
in  those  early  and  simple  years  on  a  scale  of 
surpassing  patriotic  grandeur,  with  firing  of 
cannon,  procession  to  the  village  church, 
speeches,  toasts,  and  the  like,  and  sometimes 
these  patriotic  occurrences  were  combined  with 
special  Sunday-school  celebrations  from  sur- 
rounding towns.  In  this  earlier  history  of  the 
town  were  laid  the  foundations  of  the  Town 
Library,  which  began  to  be  in  i  793.  This  early 
collection  of  books,  with  the  library  in  use  in 
the  Academy,  formed  the  nucleus  of  the  present 
Town  Library,  which  was  organized  in  1856, 
and  which  now  contains  nearly  14,000  volumes. 
John  Fiske  says  that  the  town-meeting  has 


Old-Time  Lenox  43 

been  the  making  of  the  New  England  people, 
but  this,  great  as  its  influence  has  always  been 
in  Lenox,  could  be  said  with  equal  aptness  of 
other  towns.  In  other  respects  it  has  been 
exceptional,  and  in  nothing  more  so  than  in 
its  hotel,  whose  owners,  going  back  from  Curtis 
to  Wilson,  to  Platner  and  to  Cook,  and  back  to 
Williams  and  Whitlock,  have  maintained  (on 
almost  identically  the  same  spot)  for  a  hundred 
and  twenty-five  years  a  hostelry.  The  pre- 
decessor of  the  present  house  was  built  in 
1829:  the  predecessor  of  that  in  1797,  and 
that  replaced  an  older  tavern  kept  on  substan- 
tially the  same  site  in  1773.  It  has  been,  in- 
deed, a  succession  of  inns  whose  reputations 
for  hospitality,  for  bountiful  store,  and  for  up- 
right management  have  added  not  a  little  to 
the  fame  and  the  attractiveness  of  the  town. 
As  a  business  centre  Lenox  has  vied  in  other 
days  with  brisk  Berkshire  towns,  having  sus- 
tained large  glass-works,  an  iron-foundry,  two 
tanneries,  a  factory  which  turned  out  tin  and 
willow  ware,  and  it  also  operated  a  consider- 
able iron-mine.  These  industries  have  ceased 
altogether.  A  specimen  of  plate  glass  pro- 
duced here  may  still  be  found  in  the  Patent 
Office  at  Washington,  D.  C.  A  word  might 
be  in  order  about  the  curious  customs  of  a  past 


44  Lenox 

age,  but  I  fancy  Lenox  was  not  peculiar  in 
this  respect.  The  board  where  the  banns  of 
marriage  used  to  be  published  still  hangs  on 
one  side  of  the  door  as  one  enters  the  village 
church  ;  queer  and  quaint  epitaphs  greet  the 
eye  in  the  churchyard,  but  all  these  could  be 
paralleled  in  many  another  New  England 
town. 

Let  us  close  this  chapter  by  a  reference  to 
the  great  transformation  by  which  the  quiet 
village  has  become  the  famous  resort.  Inas- 
much as  the  beginnings  of  modern  Lenox 
have  already  been  seen  in  the  progress  of  the 
story  of  other  days,  it  may  be  interesting  to 
note  simply  the  process  of  change.  We  have 
seen  that  Mrs.  Kemble  made  the  acquaintance 
of  Lenox  in  1836,  and  that  thence  on  for 
twenty  years  she  was  a  regular  visitor  in  the 
summer  seasons,  excepting  a  few  spent  abroad. 
As  early  as  September  3,  1838,  I  find  the  fol- 
lowing entry  in  her  journal : 

"The  village  hostelry  was  never  so  graced  before;  it 
is  having  a  blossoming  time  with  sweet  young  faces 
shining  about  it  in  every  direction.  The  Misses  Apple- 
ton  [one  of  whom  afterward  married  the  poet  Longfel- 
low] are  here  for  a  week,  and  there  is  a  pretty  daughter 
of  Mr.  Dewey's  staying  in  the  house  besides  with  a 
pretty  cousin." 


Old-Time  Lenox  45 

We  thus  see  that  Lenox  was  a  resort  in  a 
small  way  sixty  years  ago.  October  21,  1849, 
Miss  Sedgwick  records  the  following  in  a  letter  : 
"  The  summer  visitors  are  all  gone  "  ;  but  even 
before  this,  as  early,  indeed,  as  1846,  the  crea- 
tion of  great  estates  here  had  begun.  This  is 
the  beginning  of  the  change  by  which  Lenox 
has  become  a  town  of  magnificent  estates  and 
mansions,  the  account  of  which  belongs  to  a 
later  period  and  will  be  told  by  itself  in  a  sep- 
arate chapter  in  this  volume.  Prior  to  1868 
when  the  courts  were  removed  a  number  of 
these  beautiful  "  places  "  had  been  created  by 
people  of  large  means  and  they  dotted  the 
landscape  at  considerable  distances  apart. 
Now  more  thickly  sown,  and  even  more  pre- 
tentiously constructed,  they  crown  every 
eminence,  and  peep  out  from  their  leafy  co- 
verts on  every  projecting  spur  of  the  moun- 
tains, surveying  a  picturesque  expanse  of 
landscape  and  admired  by  every  beholder  for 
their  lavish  profusion  of  art  and  beauty. 

It  would  be  difficult  to  estimate  the  im- 
measurable benefit  which  the  coming  of  an 
affluent  class  has  conferred  upon  Lenox,  but 
one,  only  one,  of  its  benefactions  shall  be 
chronicled  here,  because  it  belongs  to  the 
period  I  have  been  attempting  to  describe.  I 


46  Lenox 

refer  to  the  gift  of  the  Court-house  to  the 
town  by  Mrs.  Adeline  E.  Schermerhorn,  who 
in  1853  purchased  property  in  Lenox  for  a 
country-place.  After  the  removal  of  the  courts 
the  question  of  the  proper  disposition  of  the 
property  took  shape  through  the  county.  Mrs. 
Schermerhorn  at  once  intervened  and  with  rare 
munificence  and  thoughtfulness  prevented  the 
removal  of  the  ancient  landmark.  Purchasing 
the  building,  and  the  plot  of  ground  on  which 
it  stood,  from  the  county,  she  donated  it  to 
the  town,  designating,  in  her  deed  of  gift,  that 
the  structure  should  be  used  for  a  library,  and 
at  the  same  time  giving  the  Lenox  Library 
Association  a  permanent  and  gratuitous  lease 
of  the  necessary  rooms.  And  so  the  venerable 
pile,  invested  with  associations  which  are  elo- 
quent with  the  story  of  the  dignity,  glory,  and 
former  greatness  of  Lenox,  links  the  town 
with  its  earlier  history,  which,  amid  the  blaze 
of  its  later  splendor,  can  never  be  forgotten. 


"2 
5 


II 


LENOX  AND  ITS  ENVIRONMENT,  IN 
LITERATURE 

IT  is  not  difficult  to  understand  how  some 
regions,  beautiful  by  reason  of  their  scenic 
loveliness,  should  be  stamped  with  a  sort  of 
predestination  to  a  high  place  in  literature. 
A  natural  beauty  in  the  landscape  does  some- 
thing more  than  attract  the  tourist ;  it  appeals 
to  those  instincts  which  fashion  the  poet  or 
the  artist.  It  is  also  true  that  the  literary  tradi- 
tions and  artistic  surroundings  of  any  locality 
prepare  a  soil  out  of  which  spring  the  very  con- 
ditions favorable  to  the  maintenance  of  its 
prestige.  By  the  river  Arno,  in  the  "lake 
region  "  of  Cumberland  and  Westmoreland,  or 
on  the  placid  river  which  flows  through  the 
Concord  meadows  what  congestion  of  literary 
associations  !  Like  the  instinct  of  the  bee 
which,  separated  by  great  distances  from  the 
hive,  possesses  the  infallible  sense  of  direction 

47 


48  Lenox 

for  its  return,  so  too  the  lovely  "  nooks  and 
corners  "  on  the  earth's  surface  are  irresistibly 
and  unerringly  attracting  choice  spirits,  which 
some  way  are  sure  to  find  them  out  and  pre- 
empt them  in  the  interests  of  their  craft  or 
clan.  Berkshire  is  no  exception  to  this,  and 
at  one  time  Lenox  was  fairly  entitled  to  the 
name  it  received,  "a  jungle  of  literary  lions." 
It  shall  be  our  task  in  this  chapter  to  present 
a  few  of  the  many  pages  where  Lenox  and 
the  Berkshires  have  been  the  inspiring  themes 
of  graceful  and  distinguished  writers  ;  to  trace 
the  literary  thread  in  the  story  of  the  village 
and  the  region. 

Just  a  little  foreword,  then,  supplementing 
rather  than  repeating  what  was  said  in  the  pre- 
vious chapter.  It  will  be  remembered  that 
Berkshire  lay  practically  undiscovered  until 
1724,  when  the  first  settlers  obtained  from  the 
Mohican  Indians,  for  the  consideration  of 
"  ^460,  three  barrels  of  cider,  and  thirty 
quarts  of  rum,"  that  portion  of  land  comprised 
in  the  present  townships  of  Sheffield,  Great 
Barrington,  Mount  Washington,  Egremont, 
Alford,  and  some  part  of  Stockbridge,  West 
Stockbridge,  and  Lee.  This  is  that  section 
of  the  county  which  extends  on  the  west  side 
of  the  Housatonic  River  from  the  Taghconic 


Lenox  in  Literature  49 

Dome  to  Monument  Mountain.  In  1736,  the 
General  Court  ordered  to  be  laid  out  on  the  east 
side  of  same  river  four  towns  which  became 
known  as  Tyringham,  New  Marlborough,  Sand- 
isfield,  and  Becket,  but  which  were  called  at  first 
simply  and  respectively  townships  i,  2,  3,  and 
4  ;  and  in  the  same  year  the  colonial  legislature 
granted  the  Indians  a  township,  or  reserva- 
tion, immediately  north  of,  and  contiguous  to, 
the  first-named  section.  This  reservation  was 
an  exact  square  six  miles,  on  each  side,  and 
embraced  the  land  occupied  by  the  present 
townships  of  Stockbridge  and  West  Stock- 
bridge.  It  was  called  by  the  Indians  Wnogh- 
que-too-koke,  and  here  they  were  collected  for 
missionary  instruction  under  Sergeant.  It 
would  take  us  too  far  afield  to  recite  here  the 
order  and  extent  of  grants  by  the  General 
Court  to  individuals  in  this  part  of  Western 
Massachusetts,  then,  and  until  1761,  included 
in  Hampshire  County.  Suffice  it  to  say  that 
it  was  not  until  1 750  that  the  first  settler  drove 
a  stake  in  Lenox,  although  there  had  pre- 
viously been  two  large  land  grants  in  the  re- 
gion, one  in  1738  to  the  heirs  of  Judge 
Edmund  Quincy  in  the  northeast,  and  another, 
the  same  year,  to  some  ministers  in  the  south,  of 
what  is  now  Lenox  township.  The  "  Quincy 


50  Lenox 

grant "  contained  a  thousand  acres,  and  its 
southern  boundary  was  not  far  from  the  north- 
ern line  of  the  present  estate  of  Mrs.  R.  T. 
Auchmuty.  The  grant  was  in  recognition  of 
the  eminent  services  of  Judge  Quincy  to  the 
State,  he  having  been  selected  by  the  General 
Court  to  lay  the  matter  of  the  disputed  boun- 
dary between  Massachusetts  and  New  Hamp- 
shire before  the  home  government,  and  dying 
soon  after  his  arrival  in  London  with  small- 
pox contracted  by  inoculation.  The  "  Mini- 
sters' grant,"  so-called,  was  a  tract  of  four 
thousand  acres,  and  comprised  that  tongue  of 
land,  in  the  southern  part  of  the  town,  whose 
tip  wedges  in  between  Stockbridge  and  Lee, 
and,  including  what  is  now  known  as  Laurel 
Lake,  this  grant  extended  northward  consid- 
erably beyond  the  high  ground  on  which 
Lenox  village  is  situated. 

It  is  in  connection  with  this  "  Ministers' 
grant "  that,  I  venture  to  say,  the  first  associa- 
tion of  Lenox  with  literature  is  traced,  though 
more  accurately  it  might  be  said  with  a  name 
great  in  the  sacred  literature  of  the  world  — 
Jonathan  Edwards.  This  extensive  grant 
was  divided  among  the  seven  grantees  in 
parcels  or  strips  from  east  to  west,  of  480 
acres  each,  with  one  or  two  exceptions,  and 


Lenox  in  Literature  51 

one  fell  to  Jonathan  Edwards,  who  at  that 
time  was  minister  to  the  church  at  Northamp- 
ton. It  is  on  that  Edwards  section  that  the 
village  of  Lenox,  along  one  of  its  principal 
streets,  Walker  Street,  stands.  It  is  more 
customary  to  associate  Edwards  with  Stock- 
bridge,  where  until  within  a  year  the  house  in 
which  he  wrote  The  Freedom  of  the  Will  was 
still  standing,  but  the  distinguished  theologian 
had  a  property  interest  in  what  was  to 
be  the  future  town  of  Lenox.  It  must  have 
been  that  many  times  during  the  years  of  his 
Stockbridge  pastorate,  1751-58,  he  would 
ride  up  the  hills  towards  his  real-estate  hold- 
ings while  he  thought  out  some  deep  prob- 
lem in  metaphysics,  or  meditated  some  adroit 
manoeuvre  to  circumvent  those  who  constantly 
harassed  the  missionary  interests  and  fleeced 
the  Indians.  It  is  at  least  pleasant  to  connect 
Lenox  with  the  name  of  Edwards,  to  whose 
short  ministry  in  Stockbridge,  if  not  to  the 
longer  one  "  in  the  solitudes  of  the  North- 
ampton woods,"  Whittier  refers  in  his  poem, 
The  Preacher  : 

"  In  the  church  of  the  wilderness  Edwards  wrought, 
Shaping  his  creed  at  the  forge  of  thought  ; 
And  with  Thor's  own  hammer  welded  and  bent 
The  iron  links  of  his  argument, 


52  Lenox 

Which  strove  to  grasp  in  its  mighty  span 
The  purpose  of  God  and  the  fate  of  man  !  " 

Lenox  during  the  first  decade  of  its  history, 
from  1750  until  1760,  was  such  an  unfavorable 
place  for  residence,  owing  to  the  fear  of  in- 
cursions of  marauding  bands  of  Indians,  that 
its  growth  was  much  impeded,  and,  in  common 
with  all  other  parts  of  the  county,  it  was  not 
till  the  French  power  was  crippled  at  Quebec 
in  1759,  and  thus  the  Indian  incursions  con- 
fined to  the  remoter  territory  at  the  north 
beyond  the  St.  Lawrence,  that  the  settle- 
ment of  Berkshire  could  proceed.  There  was 
growth  in  the  southern  part  of  the  county, 
but  the  middle  and  northern  portions  were 
unsafe  prior  to  the  year  1760.  Hardly  had 
peace  been  declared  between  Great  Britain 
and  France  when  settlers  poured  into  Berk- 
shire. So  far  as  Lenox  is  concerned  events 
proceed  rapidly.  The  county  of  Berkshire 
was  set  off  by  the  General  Court  in  May,  1761, 
its  northern  boundary  New  Hampshire  and 
its  western  boundary  the  somewhat  indetermi- 
nate and  disputed  line  between  Massachusetts 
and  New  York,  a  line  which  was  not  accurately 
and  satisfactorily  run  until  the  summer  of  1787. 
On  June  2,  1762,  the  General  Court  ordered 
ten  townships  to  be  sold  in  the  western  part 


Lenox  in  Literature  53 

of  the  State,  and  "  Lot  No.  8,"  comprising 
the  present  towns  of  Lenox  and  Richmond, 
was  knocked  down  to  the  highest  bidder, 
Josiah  Dean,  for  ^2550,  but  owing  to  some 
claims  of  the  Indians,  and  a  prior  claim  of 
one  Samuel  Brown,  and  others  who  had 
bought  the  land  covered  in  the  sale  to  Dean 
by  purchase  from  the  Indians  for  ^1700, 
the  grant  was  finally  confirmed  by  the  State 
to  Brown,  he  paying  Dean  ^650.  This  pur- 
chase did  not  of  course,  invalidate  previous 
grants  in  the  same  district,  and  the  whole, 
which  had  been  named  for  the  chiefs  of  whom 
the  land  had  been  bought,  was  incorporated 
under  the  name  Richmond  in  1765,  until  1767, 
when  that  portion  of  the  township  which 
had  gone  by  the  name  of  Yokuntown  was 
called  Lenox,  by  act  of  incorporation. 

It  is  a  fitting  place,  then,  to  stop,  and  take 
a  little  measure  of  Lennox,  Duke  of  Richmond, 
inasmuch  as  Governor  Bernard  (Francis  Ber- 
nard, Governor  of  Massachusetts,  1760-69) 
bestowed  the  titular  and  family  names  of  this 
eminent  nobleman  and  statesman  upon  what 
were  Mount  Ephraim  and  Yokuntown.  Charles 
Lennox,  Duke  of  Richmond,  and  Baron  Me- 
thuen  in  the  peerage  of  Scotland,  was  born  in 
London,  February  22,  1734-35.  Choosing  the 


54  Lenox 

army  for  his  profession  he  became  attached  to 
the  court,  and  by  rapid  promotions  was  succes- 
sively Lord  of  the  Bedchamber  (1760),  Major- 
General  (1761),  Lord  Lieutenant  of  Sussex 
(1763),  and  Secretary  of  State  (1766).  When 
the  town  of  Lenox  was  named  for  him  he  was 
Minister  Plenipotentiary  of  the  Most  Chris- 
tian King.  The  Duke  of  Richmond  played  a 
very  important  part  in  the  counsels  of  state 
incident  to  the  troublous  questions  connected 
with  the  breaking  out  of  the  American  Revo- 
lution and  was  a  member  of  various  ministries 
during  and  after  the  unsuccessful  attempt  of 
Great  Britain  to  subdue  her  colonies.  He 
was  an  earnest  Whig,  decidedly  radical  in  his 
views  and  a  vigorous  exponent  of  democracy. 
On  the  pages  of,  Lecky's  History  of  England 
in  the  Eighteenth  Century  he  is  conspicuous 
among  the  dramatis  personce  of  the  time,  and 
throughout  the  polished  letters  of  that  court- 
gossip,  Horace  Walpole,  there  are  many  very 
interesting  references  to  the  high  social  prom- 
inence of  his  Grace,  the  Duke  of  Richmond. 
He  carried  the  sceptre  with  the  dove  at  the 
coronation  of  George  III.  He  opposed  the 
war  with  America  and  was  for  surrendering 
the  English  dominion  over  the  colonies,  de- 
claring this  view  as  early  as  1776,  as  he  wished 


Lenox  in  Literature  55 

to  make  America  England's  ally  in  case  of 
future  wars  with  France,  and  as  he  feared  a 
victory  of  England  over  America  would  give 
the  Tory  element  at  home  a  long  lease  of 
power,  and  would  be  fatal  to  English  liberty. 
America  had  to  be  free,  in  other  words,  that 
England  might  be  free. 

It  is  not  difficult  to  imagine  that  the  Duke's 
radical  views  made  him  a  little  out  of  joint 
with  the  times,  and  as  he  took  a  rather  gloomy 
view  of  England's  cause  and  condition  at  the 
outbreak  of  the  American  Revolution,  he  ab- 
stained several  years  from  the  court  of  George 
III.,  being  recalled  to  the  service  of  the  state 
and  serving  in  the  ministries  of  Rockingham 
and  Pitt  when  the  war  was  over.  He  was, 
however,  always  an  interested  participant  in 
all  national  affairs ;  and  favored  universal  suf- 
frage, though  Burke  opposed  it.  He  was  a 
man,  says  Lecky,  "  of  great  influence  and  abil- 
ity." He  really  was  one  of  the  founders  of 
the  Liberal  party  which  began  to  be  in  those 
corrupt  days  preceding  the  Stamp  Act,  and 
which  was  fostered  by  some  young  men  of 
high  nobility,  "high  in  rank,"  says  Trevelyan, 
"  with  rare  exceptions,  and  most  of  them  too 
rich,  and  all  too  manly,  to  be  purchased," 
whose  creed  was  summed  up  by  one  of  their 


56  Lenox 

own  number,  Edmund  Burke,  as  "  the  princi- 
ples of  morality  enlarged."  There  were  many 
stormy  scenes  in  Parliament  where  the  Duke 
of  Richmond  was  a  centre  of  interest  and  dra- 
matic action;  once  when  he  opposed  a  motion 
to  clear  the  galleries,  and  thereby  precipitated 
an  uproar  in  the  House  of  Lords,  in  the  midst 
of  which  the  Duke  of  Richmond  himself 
walked  out  followed  by  a  very  large  train  of 
peers,  protesting  thus  energetically  against 
any  Star -Chamber  proceedings;  and  again 
when  he  moved  in  the  Lords  on  the  /th  of 
April,  1778,  that  the  war  with  America  be 
stopped,  upon  the  best  terms  obtainable  for 
England,  to  which  resolution  Chatham  replied 
in  an  impassioned  speech  which  caused  him  to 
sink  in  an  apoplectic  fit  from  which  he  did 
not  recover.  The  Duke  of  Richmond  became 
very  unpopular  on  account  of  his  radical  po- 
litical morality  and  intensely  democratic  spirit. 
The  family  name  Lennox  was  spelled  with 
two  n's,  though  on  the  tomb  of  the  Duke  of 
Richmond  it  appears  with  only  one;  and  the 
ancestor  of  the  Duke  for  whom  Lenox  is 
named  affixed  his  signature  to  the  original 
grant  by  Charles  I.  to  the  Plymouth  Colony  as 
"  Lenox."  The  omission  of  one  n  in  the 
name  of  the  town  is  ascribed  to  accident  occa- 


Lenox  in  Literature  57 

sioned  by  the  difference  in  writing  double  let- 
ters, which  were  written  formerly  as  one  letter 
through  which  passed  a  dash,  indicating  that 
the  letter  was  to  be  repeated.  It  is  thought 
the  dash  came  to  be  omitted  by  inadvertence, 
and  so  the  present  spelling  with  one  n  adopted. 
The  literary  traditions  of  Lenox  and  of  the 
region  could  not  be  written  without  some 
reference  to  the  "  Stockbridge  Indians,"  so- 
called,  an  extended  reference  to  whom  will  be 
deferred  until  later.  Suffice  it  to  say  that 
traces  of  aboriginal  occupancy  still  survive, 
though  somewhat  faintly  in  connection  with 
the  names  of  mountain,  lake,  stream,  and 
street,  and  though  appearing  as  a  palimpsest 
under  other  and  less  romantic  names,  yet  the 
Indian  nomenclature  of  nature's  points  of  in- 
terest is  not  entirely  obliterated.  Afar  off  to 
the  north  rises  Greylock  thirty-five  hundred 
feet,  called  Saddleback  by  the  early  settlers, 
but  I  cannot  find  that  it  ever  had  an  Indian 
name.  The  Berkshire  Mountains  were  the 
hunting-grounds  for  the  "  River  Indians,"  liv- 
ing along  the  Mahecannituck  (Hudson),  and 
the  little  lake  lying  just  north  of  Pittsfield  has 
received  the  name  Pontoosuck  ("  Field  of  the 
Winter  Deer  "),  which  was  the  original  name  of 
what  is  now  the  city  of  Pittsfield,  although 


58  Lenox 

the  lake  itself  was  called  by  the  Indians 
Skoon  -  keek  -  moon  -  keek.  But  if  Greylock 
seems  to  have  had  no  distinctive  Indian  name, 
the  beauty  which  its  name  suggests  has  been 
repeatedly  celebrated  by  the  masters  of  poetry 
and  prose.  From  Lenox  it  stands  out  an 
isolated  saddle  high  up  on  the  northern  sky 
and  fitted  only  for  a  Titan's  frame.  It  is  the 
highest  mountain  in  the  State,  and  its  appear- 
ance in  the  form  of  a  saddle  is  really  formed 
by  two  summits,  one  rising  a  little  behind  and 
at  the  side  of  the  other.  Turning  the  eyes  in 
the  opposite  direction  from  Greylock  as  one 
stands  on  the  high  elevation  in  Lenox  just 
north  of  the  village  known  as  "  Church  Hill," 
and  looking  off  to  the  south,  it  is  not  difficult 
to  reclothe  with  their  olden  Mohican  appella- 
tions the  prominent  features  in  the  charming 
landscape  stretching  away  from  the  beholder. 
Far  away,  twenty  miles  as  the  crow  flies,  rises 
the  solitary  Tagh-kan-nuc  ("  Forest"),  or  as  it 
is  called,  and  as  it  indeed  appears  in  the 
central  part  of  Berkshire,  the  "  Dome  of  the 
Taghconics,"  and  between  it  and  the  height 
from  which  we  are  looking  rose  to  the  red- 
skin the  tops  of  Maus-wa-see-khi  ("  Fisher's 
Nest "),  now  called  Monument  Mountain,  and 
Deowkook,  or  "  Hill  of  the  Wolves,"  now 


Lenox  in  Literature  59 

Rattlesnake,  though  another  name  by  which 
the  latter  is  said  to  have  been  known  to  the 
Indians  is  Mau-sku-fee-haunk.  It  is  an  en- 
chanting prospect,  one  vast  intervale  walled  in 
by  the  Hoosacs  on  the  east  and  the  Taghcon- 
ics  on  the  west,  Deowkook,  Maus-wa-see-khi, 
and  Tagh-kan-nuc  rising  successively  higher 
and  higher  into  the  far  distance,  while  near  us, 
nestling  under  the  heights  of  Deowkook  on 
the  right  is  the  placid  and  beautiful  Mah-kee- 
nac,  and  on  the  hither  side  Per-quan-a-pa-qua 
("  Lake  of  the  Still  Water  "),  on  whose  surfaces 
are  mirrored  the  surrounding  hills. 

If  now  we  see  the  view  before  us  at  a  higher 
altitude,  as  some  eagle  that  only  touches  foot 
on  the  peaks  to  rest  must  see  it  in  its  flight 
through  the  upper  airs,  the  mountains  would 
be  stunted,  but  running  through  the  heart  of 
the  vale  would  be  seen  the  extremely  tortuous 
twistings  and  windings  of  the  Hoo-es-ten- 
nuc  (Housatonic),  "  Over  the  Mountain,"  as 
it  makes  its  way  from  its  sources  by  its 
west  branch  in  Skoon-keek-moon-keek  and 
Onota,  near  Pontoosuck  (Pittsfield),  onwards 
to  the  sea.  At  Wnogh-que-too-koke  (Stock- 
bridge),  which  lies  there  just  beyond  Mah- 
keenac,  and  on  this  side  of  Maus-wa-see-khi, 
we  should  see  the  Hoo-es-ten-nuc  receiving  the 


60  Lenox 

waters  of  the  Konkapot  brook,  so  named  after 
the  chief  who  lived  beside  it,  then  we  should 
see  the  main  stream  of  the  valley  cutting  a  way 
for  itself  through  the  gorge  just  below,  called 
by  the  Indians  "  Pack-wa-ke  "  (a  term  signify- 
ing bend  or  elbow  by  which  the  aborigines 
designated  the  sharp  turn  in  the  Housatonic  at 
Glendale),  and  becoming  a  little  farther  down 
"  Sagistonac  "  (meaning  "  Water  Splashing 
over  the  Rocks,")  or  falls,  near  which  place  the 
Waumpa-nick-se-poot  or  Green  River,  having 
itself  just  been  swollen  by  the  Seekonk  ("  Wild 
Goose  "),  joins  the  larger  and  main  river  of  the 
valley.  This  place  where  the  Hoo-es-ten-nuc  and 
Waumpa-nick-se-poot  unite  was  a  "  Skatekook," 
or  "  a  place  where  a  small  stream  enters  into  a 
large  one,  and  corn-lands  adjoin,"  and  this 
name  Skatekook  was  applied  to  the  primitive 
and  aboriginal  settlement  of  what  subsequently 
became  Sheffield,  the  earliest  town  to  be  set- 
tled and  incorporated  in  Berkshire.  Almost 
all  of  this  Indian  nomenclature  has  disappeared 
from  practical  use,  but  a  great  many  legends 
of  the  aborigines  survive  in  various  sections  of 
Berkshire,  and  are  told  in  Skinner's  Myths 
and  Legends  of  Our  Own  Land.  Far  off  "Tagh- 
conic,"  called  simply  "  The  Dome,"  was  chris- 
tened "Mount  Everett" by  Dr.  Hitchcock,  State 


Lenox  in  Literature  61 

geologist,  in  1839,  in  honor  of  Edward  Everett, 
the  Governor  of  the  commonwealth,  and  though 
bitterly  protested  against  the  name  has  found 
its  way  into  current  use,  particularly  in  the 
southern  portion  of  the  county,  where  its  ap- 
pearance as  a  dome  is  less  marked.  One  of 
the  most  earnest  opponents  of  the  change  of 
name  was  Miss  Catherine  Sedgwick,  but  she 
is  the  reputed  originator  of  the  name  "  Stock- 
bridge  Bowl,"  which  has  entirely  supplanted 
"  Lake  Mahkeenac  "  for  which  it  was  substi- 
tuted. 

It  would  take  us  too  far  afield  to  point  out 
all  the  literary  associations  connected  with  the 
points  of  interest,  as  our  eye  sweeps  the  hori- 
zon and  the  magnificent  prospect  before  us. 
Afar  off  in  the  north  on  the  farther  slopes  of 
Greylock,  yet  within  the  limits  of  the  Berkshire 
country,  Williams  College  has  quietly  pur- 
sued its  academic  ideals  for  a  hundred  years, 
and  there  the  deep  impress  of  Mark  Hopkins's 
broad  and  classic  spirit  is  still  felt ;  nearer,  and 
skirting  the  east  of  Pittsfield,  is  the  region 
which  is  still  redolent  with  the  memory  of 
Oliver  Wendell  Holmes,  who  spent  seven 
summers,  1849-56,  on  a  part  of  the  old  farm 
belonging  originally  to  his  great-grandfather, 
Jacob  Wendell  (three  of  Dr.  Holmes's  children 


62  Lenox 

having  been  born  there  during  this  Pittsfield 
sojourn),  and  we  learn  from  the  poet  that 
"  all  of  the  present  town  of  Pittsfield,  except 
one  thousand  acres,  was  the  property  of  my 
great-grandfather,  who  owned  a  section  six 
miles  square  bought  of  the  Province."  There 
to  the  south  are  the  steepling  crags  of  Monu- 
ment, which  Bryant  has  immortalized,  and  near 
it  the  Green  River,  by  whose  banks  he  roamed 
when  town  clerk  in  the  little  village  of  Great 
Harrington,  on  the  other  side  of  Mauswaseekhi. 
There  are  other  literary  names  written  across 
the  picture,  great  names  and  small,  and  Lenox 
itself  is  resplendent  in  the  galaxy  of  letters 
with  many  stars  of  the  first  magnitude.  If  you 
care  to  know,  there  on  those  hillside  meadows 
yonder  looking  down  on  Skoon-keek-moon- 
keek,  now  called  Pontoosuck  Lake,  "  Josh  Bill- 
ings "  was  born,  and  you  may  see  any  day  his 
huge  granite  sarcophagus,  bearing  his  grotesque 
nom  de  plume  in  large  letters,  in  the  village 
cemetery  near  by.  Nearer,  and  hard  by  the 
Pittsfield  village  of  fifty  years  ago,  dwelt  Her- 
man Melville,  who  appears  often  in  the  Haw- 
thorne correspondence,  and  who  was  the  author 
of  Typee,  Omoo,  Mardi,  Redburn,  and  other 
sea-tales,  popular  in  their  day,  winning  for 
their  author  two  columns  in  Allibone,  and  still 


Lenox  in  Literature  63 

very  much  appreciated  as  first-rank  stories  of 
their  kind.  In  the  same  place  (Pittsfield) 
dwells  to-day  a  much-talked  of  writer,  William 
Stearns  Davis,  whose  promising  career  opens 
brilliantly.  Look  off  to  the  south  and  on  the 
summit  of  the  far-away  "  Dome "  is  "  Sky 
Farm  "  where  the  Goodale  sisters  (Dora  and 
Elaine)  wrote  of  "Apple  Blossoms,"  and  girded 
themselves  with  the  vigor  of  their  rugged  clime 
for  the  more  serious  duties  of  life  ;  while  off 
there  to  the  west  nestles  a  little  lake,  Queechy, 
just  outside  the  county  limits,  where  Susan 
Warner,  the  author  of  The  Wide,  Wide  World 
and  Queechy,  lived  and  wrought  in  such  a  way 
as  to  make  a  very  large  public  wait  eagerly  for 
her  message. 

Look  up  and  down  the  county  and  mark 
the  oft-frequency  of  those  places  where  once 
flourished  famous  schools,  —  the  Berkshire 
Medical  College  at  Pittsfield,  and  the  Maple- 
wood  Young  Ladies'  Institute  in  the  same 
place,  the  Greylock  Institute  at  South  Wil- 
liamstown,  the  Lenox  Academy  and  Mrs. 
Charles  Sedgwick's  school  for  girls  in  Lenox, 
the  Reid  and  Hoffman  school  in  Stockbridge, 
and  the  South  Berkshire  Institute  at  New  Marl- 
borough,  all  of  which  institutions  have  quietly 
passed  out  of  existence  with  no  obsequies  to 


64  Lenox 

commemorate  their  once  efficient  and  famous 
services. 

I  cannot  give  the  names  of  all  those  min- 
isters of  Berkshire  who  have  become  well 
known  in  the  field  of  sacred  literature  from 
Samuel  Hopkins  and  Jonathan  Edwards,  of 
whom  something  will  be  said  hereafter,  to 
Washington  Gladden  and  Theodore  T.  Mun- 
ger,  who  preached  in  the  thriving  city  under 
the  shadow  of  Greylock,  and  on  to  Charles  H. 
Parkhurst,  who  scintillated  both  light  and  heat 
on  this  very  mount  before  he  was  called  to 
New  York.  I  cannot  dwell  upon  the  repre- 
sentatives of  art,  from  George  Church  to 
Barnard  and  French,  the  last  named  just  now 
engaged  in  building  a  studio  and  mansion 
there  by  Pack-wa-ke,  to  all  of  whom  Berkshire 
has  furnished  inspiration.  I  cannot  tell  the 
long  but  interesting  story  of  distinguished 
visitors  within  the  county  come  to  add  their 
literary  prestige  to  this  and  that  section  in  the 
enchanted  realm  of  Berkshire,  from  abroad 
Mrs.  Jameson,  Miss  Martineau,  Dean  Stanley, 
Lord  Chief  Justice  Coleridge,  and  Matthew 
Arnold,  and  from  our  own  catalogue  of  wor- 
thies more  names  than  there  is  space  to  write. 
It  is  all  one  charming  story  of  literary  interest, 
aside  from  scenic  charm  or  the  thrilling  march 


Lenox  in  Literature  65 

of  historic  events,  and  many  are  the  books  the 
scenes  of  whose  plots  are  laid  in  Berkshire,  or 
in  which  scattered  notices  of  the  region  ap- 
pear. It  is  to  be  our  task  in  this  chapter  to 
reproduce  some  of  those  passages. 

And  first  let  us  get  the  view  from  distant 
"Taghconic  Dome"  as  President  Timothy 
Dwight  of  Yale  College  saw  it  one  hundred 
and  twenty  years  ago.  Dr.  Dwight  was  a 
great  traveller  and  a  voluminous  writer,  re- 
turning like  Herodotus  to  recount  tale  after 
tale  of  his  journeyings. 

"  In  the  year  1781,"  he  says,  "  I  ascended  the  loftiest 
summit  of  this  mountain  [the  Dome],  and  found  a  most 
extensive  and  splendid  prospect  spread  around  me.  On 
the  north  rose  Saddle  mountain,  at  the  head  of  the 
Hooestennuc  Valley  at  the  distance  of  forty  miles.  At 
the  same  distance  the  Catskill  mountains  formed  on  the 
west  the  boundary  of  the  vast  valley  of  the  Hudson  ; 
and  in  the  southwest  the  most  northern  summit  of  the 
Highlands.  The  chain  of  the  Green  Mountains  on  the 
east  stretched  its  long  succession  of  summits  from  north 
to  south  a  prodigious  length,  while  over  them  at  a  dis- 
tance rose  the  single,  solitary  point  of  Mount  Tom,  and 
farther  still  at  the  termination  of  fifty  or  sixty  miles, 
ascended  successively  various  eminences.  Monadnock 
at  the  distance  of  seventy  miles  on  the  northeast  is  dis- 
tinctly discernible  in  a  clear  day." 

Dr.  Dwight  in  1 798  revisited  the  region, 
and  journeying  northward  through  Great 


66  Lenox 

Harrington  he  substantiates  what  we  know 
from  the  Memoirs  of  Hopkins  about  the  no- 
torious irreligion  then  prevailing  in  that  village, 
— horse  racing  the  chief  business,  houses  de- 
cayed, unthrift  on  all  sides,  the  church  in  ruins 
and  a  shelter  for  sheep,  having  had  no  pas- 
tor for  over  thirty  years,  during  and  after 
the  troublous  Revolutionary  times.  Yet  here 
was  where  the  great  Hopkins  labored,  being 
dismissed,  after  a  twenty-five  years'  pastorate, 
in  1 769.  Dr.  Dwight  continues  his  journey 
over  Monument  Mountain  so  called  because 
here  was  buried  one  of  the  aborigines,  a  girl, 
who,  disappointed  in  love,  had  killed  herself  by 
leaping  off  a  precipice  on  the  west  side,  and 
each  Indian  who  passed  her  grave  threw  a  stone 
upon  the  place  of  sepulture,  by  which  custom, 
practised  many  years,  the  heap  had  come  to 
assume  the  proportions  of  a  monument  to  the 
dead.  This  distinguished  traveller  calls  at- 
tention to  the  "  Eastern  front  of  '  Monument,' 
a  magnificent  and  awful  precipice,  formed  by 
ragged  perpendicular  cliffs  of  white  quartz  and 
rising  immediately  west  of  the  road  between 
five  and  six  hundred  feet  "  ;  and  he  notices, 
also,  en  passant,  the  tremendous  geologic  con- 
vulsion known  as  "  Ice  Glen,"  described  so 
weirdly  and  vividly  by  Miss  Sedgwick  in  A 


Lenox  in  Literature  67 

New  England  Tale  (1822)  and  visited  annu- 
ally by  scores  of  people. 

Proceeding  on  his  journey  President  Dwight, 
after  a  short  stay  in  Stockbridge  (the  In- 
dians had  been  gone  then  twelve  years), 
comes  to  Lenox,  which  he  describes  as  given 
in  the  chapter  on  the  earlier  history  of  the 
town. 

A  monument  was  unveiled  recently  on  the 
grounds  of  Yale  College  to  Benjamin  Silli- 
man, physicist,  the  distinguished  professor  of 
chemistry  in  that  institution  from  1802  until 
1853.  Dr.  Silliman,  following  the  example 
of  President  Dwight,  made  a  journey  in  1819 
through  New  England  and  reported  what  he 
had  seen  in  a  volume  entitled,  Silliman  s  Tour 
to  Quebec.  Dwight  rode ;  Silliman's  was  a 
carriage  journey,  and  I  find  in  the  record  of  his 
travels  quite  an  extended  reference  to  Lenox. 
This  has  already  been  given  on  page  26,  and 
is  only  referred  to  again  to  call  attention  to 
the  little  bit  of  local  color.  Lenox  at  that 
time  was  in  the  beginning  of  its  prolonged 
and  friendly  contest  with  Pittsfield  for  the 
primacy  among  the  towns  of  the  county,  and 
it  was  thought  the  matter  had  been  settled  by 
the  erection  three  years  before  (1816)  of  the 
new  county  Court-house,  now,  and  since  1874, 


68  Lenox 

the    Public    Library  building,   and    known  as 
Sedgwick  Hall. 

This  is  the  edifice  Silliman  describes,  and  I 
append  here  the  rest  of  the  reference  which 
the  distinguished  traveller  makes  to  the  town. 

"  I  did  not  count  the  houses,"  he  says,  "  but  I  should 
think  there  might  be  one  hundred  houses  and  stores. 
Its  population  is  one  thousand,  three  hundred  and  ten. 
White  marble  is  often  the  material  of  their  steps,  foun- 
dations and  pavements.  Our  treatment  and  dinner  at 
the  inn  were  such  as  a  reasonable  traveller  would  have 
been  very  well  satisfied  with,  at  a  country  tavern  in 
England.  Still  probably  no  small  town  in  England  is 
so  beautiful  as  Lenox." 

Professor  Silliman  is  rapturously  enthusias- 
tic over  the  scenery  of  this  Berkshire  region, 
even  if,  in  the  rather  turgid  style  of  Xenophon, 
he  measures  off  the  "parasangs"  from  town 
to  town  ;  and  so  he  passes  on  his  way,  seeing 
"the  lofty  Hoosac  with  its  double  summit" 
(Greylock)  "on  our  right."  It  will  be  seen 
from  the  reference  to  the  "  inn  "  of  that  day, 
which  stood  upon  the  same  site  as  the  present 
substantial  and  commodious  "Curtis  Hotel," 
that  this  corner  in  the  village  has  enjoyed  for 
nearly  if  not  quite  a  century  a  prestige  for 
hospitality  and  the  entertainment  of  distin- 
guished travellers.  The  present  hotel,  entirely 


Lenox  in  Literature  69 

reconstructed  within  recent  years,  had  for  its 
predecessor  on  the  same  site  a  brick  structure 
built  in  1829  and  called  "The  Berkshire  Cof- 
fee-House,"  and  it  is  specifically  that  house 
which  has  the  literary  associations  of  great 
names.  Mrs.  Kemble,  even  so  far  back  as 
1839,  speaks  of  it  as  the  "  Old  Red  Inn  "  ;  and 
Mrs.  Jameson,  the  English  author  and  the 
intimate  friend  of  Miss  Catherine  Sedgwick, 
refers,  in  a  letter  to  the  latter,  August  20, 
1838,  to  "the  little  view  of  the  hills  from  the 
window  of  the  inn  at  Lenox  where  we  used  to 
sit." 

It  would  be  far  from  the  purpose  of  this 
chapter  to  make  a  complete  list  of  those  books 
of  description  containing  scattered  references 
to  Lenox,  or  its  environment ;  yet  it  would  be 
a  very  grave  omission  not  to  see  this  region 
through  the  eyes  of  some  of  the  English  visi- 
tors who  have  from  time  to  time  come  hither ; 
one  of  whom,  Mrs.  Kemble,  to  whom  refer- 
ence has  been  made,  became  so  enamored 
with  Berkshire  as  to  make  her  residence  in 
Lenox  for  years.  The  Lenox  during  the 
period  of  Mrs.  Kemble's  sojourn,  1836-53,  is 
the  subject  of  many  references  on  the  pages 
of  her  Records  of  Later  Life.  Mr.  Samuel  G. 
Ward,  American  representative  of  the  Baring 


7°  Lenox 

Brothers,  London,  had  purchased  in  1846  some 
farms  near  Stockbridge  Bowl,  thus  pioneering 
the  way  for  the  creation  of  vast  estates  here 
by  the  lavish  and  artistic  hand  of  Wealth. 
Other  notable  purchases  followed  right  away. 
Miss  Catherine  Sedgwick  was  toiling  at  her 
voluminous  task,  always  the  centre  of  a  liter- 
ary coterie  attracted  to  her  side,  whether  in 
New  York  or  here  in  Lenox,  where  her  home 
was  a  veritable  salon,  though  perfectly  simple 
and  informal,  graced  by  the  presence  of  Chan- 
ning,  Sumner,  Mrs.  Kemble,  distinguished 
and  exiled  Italian  patriots  of  1848,  and 
many  others.  Lenox  was  being  "  discovered." 
Charles  Sumner  writes  Dr.  Howe,  September 
13,  1844,  from  Lenox,  where  he  is  staying  with 
his  friend  Ward  :  "  Last  evening  at  the  Sedg- 
wicks'  I  heard  Fanny  Kemble  read  the  First 
Act  of  Macbeth,  and  sing  a  ballad."  Oliver 
Wendell  Holmes  writes  his  mother  from  Pitts- 
field,  August  17,  1849:  "To-day  I  rode  my 

little  horse  to  Lenox.     Mr.  's  place  is  one 

of  the  most  beautiful  spots  I  ever  saw  any- 
where ;  perfect  almost  to  a  miracle."  Before 
Mrs.  Kemble  left  the  creation  of  beautiful 
estates  had  begun;  the  "inn"  was  always 
filled  to  overflowing  ;  the  waning  star  of  Miss 
Sedgwick's  literary  greatness  had  commenced 


Lenox  in  Literature  71 

to  set;  Hawthorne  and  Beecher  were  here; 
and  with  the  dignity  of  court-life  at  the  stated 
periods,  the  bustle  and  stir  of  the  county  busi- 
ness when  the  courts  were  in  session,  the  ap- 
pearance of  a  student-corps  in  attendance 
upon  the  famous  classical  schools  located  here, 
Lenox  was  an  altogether  different  place  from 
what  it  is  to-day. 

Some  additional  references  to  the  Lenox  of 
Mrs.  Kemble's  day  are  here  presented  from 
her  own  writings.  In  her  Records  of  Later 
Life  she  says  : 

"  Being  asked  by  my  friends  in  Lenox  to  give  a  public 
reading,  it  became  a  question  to  what  purpose  the  pro- 
ceeds of  the  entertainment  could  best  be  applied.  I 
suggested  '  the  poor  of  the  village,'  but  '  We  have  no 
poor  '  was  the  reply,  and  the  sum  produced  by  the  read- 
ing was  added  to  a  fund  which  established  an  excellent 
public  library,  for  though  Lenox  had  no  paupers,  it  had 
numerous  intelligent  readers  among  its  population." 

It  may  be  that  the  chief  reason  there  were  no 
paupers  then  was  that  there  was  no  pauper 
spirit !  Mrs.  Kemble  also  relates  how  her 

"  most  admirable  friend,  Mr.  Charles  Sedgwick,  seriously 
expostulated  with  me  "  (her),  because  she  sent  some  beer 
out  to  some  laborers  in  the  hay-lot  "  as  introducing  among 
the  laborers  of  Lenox  a  mischievous  need  and  delete- 
rious habit  till  then  utterly  unknown  there;  in  short  my 


72  Lenox 

poor  barrel  of  beer  was  an  offence  to  the  manners  and 
morals  of  the  community  I  lived  in,  and  my  meadow  was 
mowed  upon  cold  water  from  the  well." 

In  all  the  journeyings  of  this  famous  actress 
her  heart  turns  back  to  the  Berkshire  town, 
and  its  mountain  environment,  "  a  district," 
she  says,  "  chiefly  inhabited  by  Sedgwicks 
and  their  belongings,"  and  one  wonders  which 
delighted  her  innermost  soul  the  more,  the 
scenery  or  the  mental  companionship  of 
Catherine  Sedgwick.  The  most  enthusiastic 
descriptions  of  the  loveliness  of  the  region  are 
only  rivalled  in  rapture  by  her  oft-allusions  to 
the  American  woman  of  letters  who  was  her 
guide  to  Channing  and  who  was  her  country- 
woman's (Mrs.  Jameson's)  friend,  as  this  little 
bit  from  a  letter  of  Anna  Jameson  to  Cather- 
ine Sedgwick  (August  20,  1838)  shows:  "I 
have  known  you  only  to  feel  how  hard  it  is  to 
be  without  you,  dear  sunshiny  Kate." 

As  early  as  1843  (October  3d),  Mrs.  Kemble 
longs  for  a  residence  in  the  Berkshires  : 

"You  do  not  know,"  she  writes,  "how  earnestly  I 
desire  to  live  up  there.  I  do  believe  mountains  and 
hills  are  kindred  of  mine, —  larger  and  smaller  re- 
lations, taller  and  shorter  cousins,  for  my  heart  expands 
and  rejoices  and  beats  more  freely  among  them,  and 
doubtless,  in  the  days  which  '  I  can  hardly  remem- 


Lenox  in  Literature  73 

ber  '  I  was  a  bear,  or  a  wolf,  or  at  the  very  least  a  wild- 
cat, with  unlimited  range  of  forest  and  mountain.  .  .  . 
That  cottage  by  the  lake-side  haunts  me,  and  to  be  able 
to  realize  that  day-dream  is  now  certainly  as  near  an  ap- 
proach to  happiness  as  I  can  ever  contemplate." 


In  London,  December  9,  1845,  t^6  Berkshire 
picture  is  before  her: 

"  My  little  sketch  of  Lenox  lake  lies  always  open  be- 
fore me,  and  I  look  at  it  very  often  with  yearning  eyes, 
for  the  splendid  rosy  sunsets  over  the  dark-blue  moun- 
tain tops,  and  for  the  clear  and  lovely  expanse  of  pure 
waters  reflecting  both,  above  all  for  the  white-footed 
streams  that  come  leaping  down  the  steep  stairways  of 
the  hills.  I  believe  I  do  like  places  better  than  people." 

In  Rome,  May  20,  1846,  she  remembers  Lenox  : 

"  The  beautiful  aspect  of  this  enchanting  region  re- 
calls the  hill  country  in  America  that  I  am  so  fond  of. 
The  district  of  country  round  Lenox  rejoices  in  a  num- 
ber of  small  lakes  (from  one  hillside  one  sees  five)  of  a 
few  miles  in  circumference,  which,  lying  in  the  laps  of 
the  hills,  with  fine  wooded  slopes  sweeping  down  to  their 
bright  basins,  give  a  peculiar  charm  to  the  scenery." 

In  another  place  she  writes,  "  It  is  the  most 
picturesque  scenery  I  have  ever  seen,"  and 
after  describing  the  beauties  of  landscape 
about  Stockbridge  and  Lenox,  lavishes  un- 
stinted praise  upon  the  scenic  charm  "  in  the 
neighborhood  of  a  small  town  called  Salisbury, 


74  Lenox 

thirty  miles  from  Lenox.  This,"  she  continues, 
"  is  situated  in  a  plain  surrounded  by  moun- 
tains, and  upon  the  same  level  lie  four  beauti- 
ful small  lakes  ;  close  above  this  valley  rises 
Mount  Washington,  or  as  some  Swiss  charcoal- 
burners,  who  have  emigrated  hither,  have 
christened  it,  Mount  Righi."  The  mountain 
referred  to  here  is  "  The  Dome,"  which  stands 
like  a  sentinel  at  the  southern  end  of  the 
Berkshire  country. 

Mrs.  Kemble  revelled  in  all  the  prodigality 
of  rich  landscape  here,  a  rare  lover  of  nature, 
oblivious  to  criticisms  upon  her  singularity  as 
she  strolled  or  rode  here  and  there.  Charles 
Sumner,  who  spent  some  weeks  in  Pittsfield 
recuperating  from  a  severe  illness,  writes  his 
friend  Howe,  September  n,  1844: 

"  To-morrow  I  move  to  Lenox  where  I  sojourn  with 
Ward  and  count  much  upon  the  readings  of  Shakespeare, 
the  conversation  and  society  of  Fanny  Kemble,  who  has 
promised  to  ride  with  me  and  introduce  me  to  the  beau- 
tiful lanes  and  wild  paths  of  these  mountains.  She 
seems  a  noble  woman,  peculiar,  bold,  masculine,  and  un- 
accommodating, but  with  a  burning  sympathy  with  all 
that  is  high,  true,  and  humane." 

At  another  time  he  speaks  of  riding  in  Mrs. 
Butler's  (Fanny  Kemble's)  company,  who 
"  proposed  to  accompany  me  back  to  Pitts- 


••; 


Fanny  Kemble. 


Lenox  in  Literature  75 

field.  We  rode  the  longest  way  and  I  en- 
joyed my  companion  very  much "  ;  and  at 
another  he  and  his  friend,  Mr.  Ward,  "  looked 
on  while,  in  a  field  not  far  off,  the  girls 
and  others  engaged  in  the  sport  of  archery. 
Mrs.  Butler  hit  the  target  in  the  golden  mid- 
dle." Hawthorne,  who  spent  the  busiest 
eighteen  months  of  his  life  in  a  literary  way  in 
Lenox,  from  the  spring  of  1850  until  the 
autumn  of  1851,  was  thrown  into  the  society  of 
Mrs.  Butler  (so  far  as  he,  the  unsocial  man, 
could  be  thrown  into  any  society),  and  as  we 
see  her  dash  up  on  easy  and  familiar  terms  be- 
fore the  "  little  old  red  house,"  reining  in  her 
fiery  steed, — which  there  is  a  tradition,  here  in 
Lenox,  she  rode  a  la  chevalier, — we  may  won- 
der if  either  understood  the  other,  so  unlike 
were  they  in  many  ways. 

Hawthorne  would  jump  over  the  fence  to 
avoid  meeting  strangers ;  Mrs.  Kemble  was 
excessively  social.  Hawthorne  tired  of  the 
scenery  ;  it  grew  upon  her  the  more  she  saw 
it.  Julian  Hawthorne,  writing  of  the  Lenox 
period  in  his  father's  life,  says  she  "  often  rode 
up  to  the  door  on  her  strong  black  horse,  and 
conversed,  in  heroic  phrases,  with  the  inmates 
of  the  red  house."  She  was  a  strong  person- 
ality, full  of  kindliness  and  an  "  enthusiasm  of 


76  Lenox 

humanity,"  not  in  love  with  her  profession,  a 
deep  thinker  on  religious  questions,  raptly  in 
love  with  nature,  and  a  writer  of  most  interest- 
ing and  readable  letters.  Her  love  for  the 
Berkshires  took  the  form  of  the  creation  of  a 
"place"  called  "The  Perch,"  and  since  her  re- 
moval, though  before  her  death,  the  town 
named  the  street  on  which  her  place  was 
located  in  her  honor.  Toward  the  close  of 
her  long  life  she  brought  out  a  book,  Far 
Away  and  Long  Ago,  showing  that  in  the 
English  home  where  she  passed  the  evening 
of  her  days,  the  memories  of  a  far-off  hill- 
country  were  uppermost.  She  published  in 
1858  a  volume  of  poems,  some  of  which  were 
inspired  by  her  Lenox  residence.  We  recog- 
nize the  influence  of  the  locale  in 

"  Greylock,  cloud-girdled,  from  his  purple  throne 

A  shout  of  gladness  sends, 
And  up  soft  meadow  slopes,  a  warbling  tone 

The  Housatonic  blends." 

Of  other  English  visitors  who  have  written 
about  Berkshire  we  shall  not  speak  so  much 
at  length.  Miss  Harriet  Martineau  made  a 
somewhat  protracted  stay  of  two  years  in 
America  (1834-36),  a  small  portion  of  the 
time  being  spent  in  the  Berkshires,  visiting 


Lenox  in  Literature  77 

Miss  Catherine  Sedgwick  at  Stockbridge, 
where,  the  house  is  still  standing  in  which 
Catherine  was  born  in  1789.  It  was  here 
Miss  Martineau  was  entertained  in  November, 
1834. 

"  We  have  been  exquisitely  happy  in  Stockbridge  with 
the  Sedgwicks.  Miss  Sedgwick  is  all  I  heard  of  her, 
which  is  saying  everything.  .  .  .  Such  a  country  of 
mountain  and  lake  and  towering  wood!  I  was  '  Lafayetted' 
as  they  say  to  great  advantage.  All  business  was  sus- 
pended and  almost  the  whole  population  was  busy  in 
giving  me  pleasure  and  information.  We  were  carried 
to  Pittsfield  to  an  annual  agricultural  assemblage  where  I 
learned  much  of  the  people.  Oh!  the  bliss  of  not  seeing 
a  single  beggar.  ...  I  have  learned  more  than  I 
well  know  how  to  stow,  at  Stockbridge,  the  unrivalled 
village  where  the  best  refinements  of  the  town  are 
mingled  with  the  wildest  pleasures  of  the  country.  I 
never  saw  so  beautiful  a  company  of  children  as  were  al- 
ways offering  me  roses.  Miss  Sedgwick  is  the  beloved 
and  gentle  queen  of  the  little  community." 

Miss  Martineau's  tour  through  America  was 
at  a  critical  time  so  far  as  politics  were  con- 
cerned, owing  to  the  divisive  and  persistent 
question  of  slavery,  and  her  "  impressions  "  of 
the  United  States  were  given  to  the  public  in 
a  book  entitled  Society  in  America,  published 
after  her  return  to  England  and  bringing 
down  upon  its  author's  head  a  storm  of  abuse 
from  the  press  on  this  side  of  the  Atlantic ; 


78  Lenox 

but  we  are  grateful  for  its  descriptions  of  the 
prominent  people  of  the  day,  and  notably  of 
Miss  Catherine  Sedgwick. 

"  I  remember  Miss  Sedgwick,"  writes  Harriet  Marti- 
neau,  "  starting  back  in  the  path,  one  day  when  she  and 
I  were  walking  beside  the  sweet  Housatonic,  and  snatch- 
ing her  arm  from  mine  when  I  said,  in  answer  to  her 
inquiry  what  I  thought  the  issue  of  the  controversy  must 
be,  '  The  dissolution  of  the  Union  ! '  she  cried,  '  The 
Union  is  sacred,  and  must  be  preserved  at  all  cost.'  " 

There  are  many  interesting  references  to 
Miss  Sedgwick  in  Miss  Martineau's  Autobi- 
ography, and  to  Harriet  Martineau  in  Cather- 
ine Sedgwick's  Life  and  Letters.  Harriet 
and  Catherine  were  respectively  thirty-three 
and  forty-six  when  they  had  their  "  drives  to- 
gether or  strolled  along  the  sweet  Housa- 
tonic"  in  1835,  Dut  they  were  too  utterly 
dissimilar  in  many  ways  to  cement  an  un- 
broken friendship.  Catherine's  affectionate 
tenderness  was  misinterpreted  for  flattery  by 
Harriet,  and  naturally  when  the  younger  told 
the  older  that  she  "  dreaded  to  receive  her 
letters  because  instead  of  what  I  wished  to 
hear,  I  found  praise  of  myself,"  their  corre- 
spondence ceased.  Miss  Martineau,  however, 
had  "  a  great  admiration  for  Miss  Sedgwick's 
character,"  and  reviewed  the  American  novel- 


Lenox  in  Literature  79 

ist's  works  in  the  Westminster  Review  of  Octo- 
ber, 1837,  particularly  praising  as  "  wonderfully 
beautiful  "  the  smaller  tales  such  as  Home  and 
Live  and  Let  Live. 

It  is  a  more  congenial  and  inspiring  friend- 
ship which  greets  one  in  the  long  comradeship 
between  Mrs.  Jameson  and  Miss  Sedgwick, 
but  its  value  for  us  here  is  in  its  bearing  upon 
the  subject  of  this  chapter.  Catherine  Sedg- 
wick returned,  in  1839,  tne  visit  which  Anna 
Jameson  made  in  America  in  1837,  and  among 
the  friendships  of  literary  women  there  are  few 
more  intense  or  mutually  stimulating.  They 
were  nearly  of  the  same  age,  and  their  corre- 
spondence continuing  through  the  last  twenty 
years  of  Mrs.  Jameson's  life  is  a  mirror  of  the 
literary  activity  of  the  period.  In  her  London 
home  Mrs.  Jameson  keeps  prominently  before 
her  "the  house  where  Catherine  Sedgwick 
was  born,  and,  also,  the  little  view  of  the  hills 
from  the  window  of  the  inn  at  Lenox,"  as  she 
writes  August  20,  1838. 

Indeed,  with  the  names  of  Harriet  Martineau, 
Anna  Jameson,  Fanny  Kemble,  Harriet  Beecher 
Stowe,  Frederika  Bremer,  Harriet  Hosmer, 
Mary  Dewey,  and  Catherine  Sedgwick  at  one 
and  another  time  not  very  far  apart  written  into 
the  Berkshire  story,  it  will  be  seen  how  much 


8o  Lenox 

woman  has  contributed  to  enhance  the  literary 
prestige  of  the  region.  Miss  Bremer  was  at- 
tracted to  the  Berkshire  country  through  her 
long  friendship  with  MissSedgwick,  and  Harriet 
Hosmer  was  a  pupil  in  the  "  Young  Ladies 
School  "  conducted  for  many  years  in  Lenox 
by  Mrs.  Charles  Sedgwick  and  famous  in  its 
day.  Mary  Dewey,  the  daughter  of  a  distin- 
guished Unitarian  clergyman,  Rev.  Orville 
Dewey,  D.D.,  was,  like  her  father,  whose 
Life  she  wrote,  born  in  Sheffield,  the  earli- 
est settlement  in  Berkshire  County,  and  was, 
owing  to  theological  and  literary  affinities, 
thrown  much  into  the  society  of  the  Lenox 
coterie.  Mrs.  Stowe,  both  through  her  dis- 
tinguished brother,  Henry  Ward  Beecher,  who 
acquired  property  in  Lenox  in  1853,  and 
through  her  son-in-law,  Mr.  Allen,  the  rector 
at  one  time  of  the  Episcopal  church  in  Stock- 
bridge,  was  an  oft-visitor  in  the  region,  and 
an  amusing  rencontre  between  Fanny  Kemble 
and  her  is  told  by  Mrs.  Kemble-Butler  in 
her  Records.  Mrs.  Stowe  was  expressing  to 
Fanny  Kemble,  in  a  call  made  by  herself  and 
daughter  upon  the  actress  in  Lenox,  her  belief 
in  Planchette,  and  the  undoubted  conviction 
she  entertained  that  it  was  immediately  in- 
spired by  Satanic  influences  on  account  of 


Lenox  in  Literature  81 

the  "language  it  uses."  "  Really,"  said  Mrs. 
Kemble  with  ill-suppressed  laughter ;  "  may  I 
inquire  what  language  it  does  use  ?  "  "  Why," 
returned  Mrs.  Stowe,  with  evident  reluctance 
to  utter  the  words  that  followed,  "  it  told  us  the 
last  time  we  consulted  it  that  we  were  all  a  pack 

of  d d  fools,  and  we  must  certainly  give  up 

having  anything  to  do  with  it."  Mrs.  Kemble 
was  now  convulsed  with  laughter  and  ex- 
claimed :  "  Oh  !  I  believe  in  Planchette  !  I  be- 
lieve in  Planchette,"  but  seeing  that  Mrs. 
Stowe  was  offended  and  shocked  by  her  levity, 
changed  her  tone  to  seriousness  and  asked  her 
if  she  really  believed  the  devil  had  anything  to 
do  with  it.  Upon  the  reiteration  of  Mrs. 
Stowe's  conviction  Mrs.  Kemble  "  turned,"  to 
use  her  own  language,  "  in  boundless  amaze- 
ment to  the  younger  lady,  whose  mischievous 
countenance,  with  a  broad  grin  upon  it,  at 
once  settled  all  my  doubts  as  to  the  devilish 
influence  under  which  Planchette  had  spoken 
such  home  truths  to  her  family  circle  ! " 

It  would  be  interesting  to  pursue  this  digres- 
sion upon  the  literary  women  whose  names  are 
a  part  of  the  Berkshire  story,  to  associate  still 
further  with  the  loveliness  of  the  region  here- 
abouts many  others,  like  Rose  Hawthorne 
Lathrop,  author  of  Memories  of  Hawthorne 

6 


82  Lenox 

(1897),  who  was  born  in  the  "little  red  house" 
her  father  occupied  in  1850-51  ;  Mrs.  Sigour- 
ney,  whose  poem  on  "  Stockbridge  Bowl  "  is 
worth  preserving,  and  Mrs.  Charles  Sedgwick 
whose  husband  was  Catherine's  brother,  and 
whose  Talks  with  My  Pupils,  published  in 
1862,  was  the  outcome  of  her  tender  and  ad- 
visory relations  with  the  young  ladies  who 
resorted  for  thirty  years  to  her  school  here  in 
Lenox  from  all  parts  of  the  country.  Mrs. 
Sedgwick  christened  her  school  a  "  character- 
factory  "  and  such  she  assiduously  strove  to 
make  it.  Her  book  is  really  a  collection  of 
most  stimulating  "  heart-talks "  which  I  am 
sure  any  young  lady  of  the  present  would  find 
extremely  profitable  and  fascinating  reading. 
I  cannot  forbear  giving  one  reference  from 
this  book  to  the  religious  character  of  Mrs. 
Kemble-Butler,  and  any  one  who  has  read  her 
Records  of  Later  Life  will  have  received  the 
same  profound  impression  concerning  this 
actress,  showing  that  histrionism  and  moral 
earnestness  are  not  necessarily  antagonistic. 

"  Mrs.  Kemble,  the  great  revealer  of  Shakespeare," 
writes  Mrs.  Sedgwick,  "  once  said  to  me,  that  it  was  with 
Shakespeare  as  with  the  Bible,  she  never  opened  it  with- 
out finding  something  new.  And,  in  illustration,  she 
quoted  a  line  in  Romeo  and  Juliet,  which  had  that  day 
particularly  attracted  her  attention,  in  which  Juliet  calls 


Lenox  in  Literature  83 

Romeo  '  lover,  husband,  friend,'  making  the  last  epithet 
the  culmination  of  all  the  rest.  .  .  .  That  word 
FRIEND  is  a  glorious  old  Saxon  word.  Do  all  you  can  to 
illustrate  its  meaning." 

The  name  of  another  great  actress,  Char- 
lotte Cushman,  belongs  to  the  Lenox  story. 
In  the  year  1875,  after  her  life  work  on  the 
stage  had  been  completed,  Miss  Cushman 
came,  in  rather  enfeebled  health,  to  this  moun- 
tain village,  where  she  had  purchased  a  little 
cottage  with  the  intention  of  making  it  her 
summer  home.  She  was  not  permitted  to  en- 
joy it,  however,  more  than  one  summer,  as  she 
died  February  18,  1876,  yet  the  house  she  oc- 
cupied is  still  known  as  the  u  Charlotte  Cush- 
man cottage." 

I  am  sure  this  reference  to  the  women  who 
have  entwined  Lenox  with  the  literary  world 
would  be  very  incomplete  if  no  mention  were 
made  of  Mrs.  Burton  Harrison,  who  for  many 
years  has  been  a  summer  resident  in  this  moun- 
tain village  and  who  makes  frequent  allusions 
in  her  books  to  Lenox,  as  a  resort,  and  to  the 
enchanting  scenic  beauty  of  the  region.  Lately 
another  woman  distinguished  in  letters,  Mrs. 
Edith  Wharton,  has  become  enamored  of  the 
Berkshire  country,  and  after  a  few  years'  resi- 
dence in  Lenox  is  erecting  here  a  country-seat, 


84  Lenox 

beautifully  located  near  Laurel  Lake,  and  look- 
ing off  upon  the  Hoosacs  and  the  Tyringham 
Pass.  Indeed,  it  maybe  said  incidentally,  this 
section  of  the  town  is  full  of  literary  associa- 
tions. North  of  Mrs.  Wharton's  on  the  high 
ground  rising  towards  Lenox  village  stood  the 
home  of  Fanny  Kemble,  called  by  her  "The 
Perch,"  and  still  so  called ;  farther  round  to 
the  east,  overlooking  the  same  lake  and  on  the 
crest  of  a  hill,  was  the  Henry  Ward  Beecher 
place,  where  by  a  turn  of  the  eyeball  that 
noted  preacher  said  he  could  command  Grey- 
lock  and  the  Dome  ;  adjoining  the  old  Beecher 
place  is  "Coldbrooke,"  the  summer  residence 
of  James  Barnes,  the  war-correspondent  and 
writer ;  coming  nearer  the  lake  is  the  country- 
place  of  the  late  John  O.  Sargent,  the  dis- 
tinguished Horatian  scholar  and  brother  of 
Epes  Sargent,  both  of  whom  enjoyed  friend- 
ships in  the  innermost  circles  of  American  let- 
ters ;  and  across  the  lake  five  miles  distant  in 
the  ancient  town  of  Tyringham  is  Richard 
Watson  Gilder's  side-hill  farm,  where  the  poet 
looks  northward  to  the  Lenox  church  over  a 
pleasing  prospect,  and  westward  upon  "  The 
Shadow  Bridge,"  which  each  afternoon  spans 
the  intervale  between  him  and  Bear  Mountain 
opposite. 


Lenox  in  Literature  85 

Returning  then  from  this  digression  con- 
cerning the  literary  women  whose  names  are 
associated  with  Lenox  and  its  environment, 
we  recur  once  more  to  what  other  English 
travellers  have  said  concerning  Berkshire. 
Charles  Kingsley  was  here  in  1874  and  com- 
pared its  forests  and  streams  to  "  the  best  parts 
of  the  Eifel  and  Black  Forest."  Dean  Stanley 
was  for  some  time  the  guest  of  Cyrus  W. 
Field,  Esq.,  in  Stockbridge,  during  the  autumn 
of  1878,  and  he  writes  to  friends  in  England: 

"  I  am  extremely  glad  I  did  not  lose  this  place.  It 
is  a  village  buried  among  the  Berkshire  hills,  the  scene 
of  the  first  Indian  missions,  the  burial-place  of  the 
Indians  of  this  part  of  America,  the  residence  of  the 
great  Calvinist,  Jonathan  Edwards,  the  birth,  and 
the  burial-place  of  this  family  of  the  Fields." 

And  we  might  add  that  no  account  of  the 
literary  traditions  of  Berkshire  could  be  writ- 
ten without  assigning  a  large  place  to  this  very 
distinguished  family.  In  the  village  church  at 
Stockbridge  Dean  Stanley  preached  a  sermon 
in  which  with  utter  nobility  of  soul  and  large- 
ness of  vision  he  recognized  the  good  there 
was  in  Edwards's  "hard  system."  "Even  in 
the  most  unlovely  of  theologians,"  the  gener- 
ous-minded Dean  of  Westminster  Abbey  said 
in  the  sermon  referred  to, 


86  Lenox 

"  whether  in  Geneva  or  Massachusetts,  there  is  still 
something  to  invigorate  and  to  stimulate,  when  we  re- 
flect that  they  were  trying  to  fortify  the  eternal  princi- 
ples of  truth  and  righteousness  against  the  temptations 
which  beset  us  all." 

Edwards's  Freedom  of  the  Will,  which  Profes- 
sor Allen  says  was  "  one  of  the  literary  sensa- 
tions of  the  eighteenth  century,"  was  written 
in  Stockbridge  and  published  in  1754  and  is 
admittedly  one  of  the  mightiest  products  of 
the  American  intellect.  The  house  where  it 
was  composed  should  have  been  a  literary 
shrine  always,  no  matter  to  what  extent  the- 
ology may  have  reacted  from  the  older  type. 
Few  towns  in  America  can  boast  two  such 
Meccas  for  all  literary  pilgrims  as  the  house 
where  Hawthorne  wrote  his  House  of  the  Seven 
Gables  in  1851,  and  the  house  where  Jonathan 
Edwards  wrote  the  Freedom  of  the  Will  a 
hundred  years  earlier — yet  the  former  was 
burned  down,  and  the  latter  torn  down.  It  is 
certainly  to  be  hoped  that  both  these  sites  will 
be  fittingly  marked.  Such  a  monument  as 
that  to  the  Indians,  for  example,  in  Stock- 
bridge,  a  simple  column  of  field-stone,  derives 
new  sacredness  and  charm  from  the  fact  that 
here  Dean  Stanley  stood  reverently,  remarking 
to  one  near,  "  The  grave  of  the  Stockbridge 


Lenox  in  Literature  87 

Indians,  the  friends  of  our  fathers,  places  me 
on  the  boundary  of  those  days  when  the  sav- 
age and  the  civilized  man  still  met,  like  Goth 
and  Roman,  in  the  varied  vicissitudes  of  peace 
and  war." 

We  must  pass  over  with  the  merest  men- 
tion the  names  of  other  illustrious  English 
travellers  who  have  at  various  times  been 
guests  in  Lenox,  or  the  vicinity,  and  who  by 
their  presence  here  have  added  to  the  prestige 
of  the  locale, — Lord  Chief  Justice  Coleridge, 
the  guest  of  John  E.  Parsons  of  Lenox,  Lord 
Kelvin,  the  guest  of  George  Westinghouse, 
Esq.,  of  Lenox,  "  Ian  Maclaren,"  and  Samuel 
Chisholm,  Lord  Provost  of  Glasgow  University, 
the  guests  of  John  Sloane,  Esq.,  of  Lenox, 
the  Princess  Augusta  and  her  husband,  a  dis- 
tinguished educator  of  Germany,  guests  of 
Dr.  and  Mrs.  F.  P.  Kinnicutt.  Our  purpose  is 
a  simple  one,  to  gather  together  the  recorded 
descriptions  of  the  region  on  the  pages  of  lit- 
erature, and  so  we  will  offer  a  few  references 
to  the  hill-country  of  Western  Massachusetts 
from  the  Letters  of  Matthew  Arnold.  Here 
is  a  letter  dated  Stockbridge,  Mass.,  July  8, 
1886: 

''  This  is  a  pretty  place  with  many  hills  of  2000  feet, 
and  one  of  3500.  There  are  a  great  many  people  in  the 


Lenox 

neighborhood,  some  of  them  nice.  The  country  is 
pleasing  but  not  to  be  compared  to  Westmoreland.  It 
is  wider  and  opener,  and  neither  hills  nor  lakes  are  so 
effective.  The  villas  are  very  pretty.  The  American 
wooden  villa  with  its  great  piazza  where  the  family  live 
in  hot  weather,  is  the  prettiest  villa  in  the  world.  And 
the  trees  are  everywhere  ;  indeed  they  cover  the  hills 
too  much,  to  the  exclusion  of  the  truly  mountainous 
effects  which  we  get  from  the  not  higher  mountains  of 
Langdale." 

Again  in  a  letter  to  Mr.  Grant  Duff,  dated 
Stockbridge,  Mass.,  July  29,  1886,  Matthew 
Arnold  says  : 

"  This  Berkshire  county  in  Massachusetts  where  I 
now  am,  which  the  Americans  extol,  is  not  to  be  com- 
pared to  the  Lakes  of  Scotland.  The  heat  is  great  in 
summer,  and  in  winter  the  cold  is  excessive.  But  the 
flowers  and  trees  are  delightfully  interesting  "  ; 

and  after  enumerating  the  varieties  of  wild 
flowers  he  had  found  in  strolls  and  drives,  all 
of  which  he  calls  by  their  botanical  names,  he 
continues  : 

"  What  would  I  give  to  go  in  your  company  for  even 
one  mile  on  any  of  the  roads  out  of  Stockbridge  !  The 
trees  too  delight  me.  I  had  no  notion  what  maples 
were,  thinking  only  of  our  pretty  hedgerow  shrub  at 
home,  but  they  are  as,  of  course,  you  know,  trees  of  the 
family  of  our  sycamore  but  more  imposing  than  our 
sycamore.  The  American  elm  I  cannot  prefer  to  the 
English,  but  still  I  admire  it  extremely." 


Lenox  in  Literature  89 

As  autumn  approaches  our  distinguished  critic 
becomes  rather  more  reconciled  to  the  climate, 
which  had  rather  accentuated  the  heart-trou- 
ble from  which  he  suffered.  August  24th  he 
writes  : 

"  This  place  [Stockbridge]  has  become  very  enjoy- 
able. I  see  at  last  what  an  American  autumn  which 
they  so  praise  is  and  it  deserves  the  praise  given  it.  I 
wish  you  could  have  been  with  us  yesterday,  that  is,  if 
you  are  not  nervous  in  a  carriage,  for  the  roads  look 
impossible  in  places  and  the  hills  are  awful.  We  went  to 
a  lake  called  Long  Lake  near  which  we  could  see  to  the 
south  a  wide  valley  with  the  Dome  and  the  other  Ta- 
conic  Mountains  in  the  sunset  at  the  end  of  it.  We 
were  perpetually  stopping  the  carriage  in  the  woods 
through  which  we  drove,  the  flowers  were  so  attractive. 
You  have  no  notion  how  beautiful  the  asters  are  till  you 
see  them." 

Three  days  later  (August  2  7th)  he  writes 
Charles  Eliot  Norton  : 

"  I  like  Berkshire  more  and  more.  The  Dome  is  a 
really  imposing  and  beautiful  mass  ;  I  have  seen  it 
now  from  many  points  and  in  many  lights,  and  with 
ever  increasing  admiration.  I  was  shown  the  Green 
River  yesterday,  the  river  immortalized  by  the  American 
Wordsworth,  i.  e.,  Bryant.  But  the  Dome,  at  any  rate, 
will  live  in  my  admiring  memory." 

On  Matthew  Arnold's  return  to  England  he 
writes  to  his  daughter  in  America : 


90  Lenox 

"  You  cannot  think  how  often  Stockbridge  and  its 
landscape  come  into  my  mind.  None  of  the  cities 
could  attach  me,  not  even  Boston  ;  but  I  could  get 
fond  of  Stockbridge." 

But  if  Arnold  could  not  forgive  Berkshire  its 
climate  for  the  sake  of  its  scenery,  it  is  at 
least  admissible  and  not  at  all  retaliatory  to 
entertain  the  thought  that  an  Englishman's 
meteorological  tastes  may  be  perverted.  Mrs. 
Kemble-Butler  became  so  converted  to  Berk- 
shire weather  as  to  taunt  her  English  friends 
with  their  leaden  skies  and  ceaseless  drizzles, 
and  she  chuckles  as  she  writes  from  Lenox  to 
some  one  in  England  :  "  What  a  good  place 
you  are  in  to  wear  out  umbrellas  !  "  Indeed, 
Mrs  Jameson  when  she  reaches  England  is 
facetious  enough  to  write  as  follows  to  Cather- 
ine Sedgwick  : 

"  We  are  having  real  '  English  weather,'  leaden  sky, 
fog  and  a  drizzling  rain.  It  reminds  me  of  one  of 
Marryat's  stories  of  an  old  quartermaster  who,  returning 
from  a  three  years'  voyage  to  the  East  Indies,  and  ap- 
proaching the  English  shore  in  weather  such  as  this, 
looked  up  into  the  dull  sky  and  hazy  atmosphere,  and 
sniffing  up  the  damp  air  and  buttoning  his  pea-jacket 
over  his  chest,  exclaimed  with  exultation,  '  Ay,  this  is 
something  like, — none  of  your  d d  blue  skies  here  ! ' ' 

It  is  not  my  purpose  to  collect  every  "scrap 
and  scription  "  of  what  has  been  written  about 


Lenox  in  Literature  91 

Lenox,  or  its  environment,  in  literature,  yet 
we  may  turn  now  from  this  incomplete  pre- 
sentation of  the  region  as  seen  through  other 
eyes  to  a  close-range  view  of  this  state,  rather 
than  county,  of  Berkshire,  for  walled  in  on 
every  side  its  very  isolation  has  intensified 
a  feeling  of  unity.  Berkshire  is  an  entity  by 
itself  rather  than  a  part  of  something  else.  It 
emits  like  the  diamond  from  its  many  facets 
an  interior  brilliancy  no  matter  on  which  side 
you  study  it.  What  has  Berkshire  not  given 
to  the  literatures  of  patriotism,  religion,  edu- 
cation, romance,  and  poetry !  What  untold 
and  incalculable  literary  inspirations  has  not 
the  Berkshire  college  in  Williamstown,  which 
celebrated  eight  years  ago  its  centennial,  cre- 
ated and  fostered !  What  a  student-corps, 
destined  to  play  a  leading  part  in  statesman- 
ship, religion,  education,  and  literature,  has 
had  its  spirit  baptized  with  the  stimulating 
beauties  and  glories  of  a  Berkshire  environ- 
ment !  If  we  turn  the  pages  of  the  educa- 
tional literature  of  the  nineteenth  century  in 
America  a  distinctively  Berkshire  name  stands 
out  luminously  and  conspicuously, — Mark  Hop- 
kins, President  of  Williams  College,  and  con- 
nected with  the  institution  for  almost  sixty 
years,  a  Thomas  Arnold  among  teachers.  If 


92  Lenox 

we  turn  the  pages  of  our  early  patriotic  litera- 
ture, you  cannot  read  far  before  you  come  upon 
another  Berkshire  name,  Major-General  John 
Paterson  of  Lenox,  the  friend,  counsellor,  and 
comrade  of  General  Washington  throughout 
that  long  Revolutionary  struggle.  There  are 
many  references  to  Lenox  in  the  Life  of  Gen- 
eral Paterson  by  the  late  Professor  Egleston. 
The  literature  of  American  patriotism  has  no 
brighter  or  more  thrilling  pages  than  the  story 
of  Bennington  and  the  Berkshire  troops,  with 
"Parson"  Allen  of  the  First  Church,  Pitts- 
field,  filled  with  both  the  ministering  and  mili- 
tant spirit  ;  the  story  of  the  non-importation 
compacts,  one  of  which,  the  original,  yellowed 
with  age  and  bearing  the  signatures  of  many 
yeomen,  hangs  as  we  have  said,  on  the  walls 
of  the  Lenox  Library,  a  thing  of  pride  and 
inspiration  to  their  descendants ;  the  march 
and  countermarch,  campaigns  and  sufferings 
of  the  Berkshire  regiment,  many  of  whom 
were  Lenox  men  inspired  by  General  Pater- 
son's  enthusiasm,  as  told  in  Field  and  Hol- 
land and  the  biographies  of  distinguished 
soldiers  in  all  the  American  wars  from  Pater- 
son to  Bartlett.  If  we  turn  to  the  liter- 
ature of  religion  we  are  confronted  at  once 
with  some  of  the  most  massive  works  on  the- 


Lenox  in  Literature  93 

ology  the  American  intellect  has  yet  produced, 
—a  System  of  Divinity,  written  by  Samuel 
Hopkins,  who  was  for  twenty-five  years  the 
pastor  of  the  church  down  yonder  in  Great 
Barrington,  and  who  in  this  theological  work, 
published  after  leaving  Berkshire,  moulds 
New  England  thought  for  nearly  four  genera- 
tions. To  Jonathan  Edwards's  celebrated  trea- 
tise on  the  Will  we  have  referred.  Those 
seven  years  of  Edwards's  life  in  Stockbridge 
were  busier  and  more  productive  in  a  literary 
way  than  any  other  heptade  in  his  life.  Other 
theological  works  by  West,  Catlin,  and  others 
show  the  temper  and  calibre  of  that  olden 
ministry.  It  would  weary  the  patience  of  the 
reader  to  recount  here  all  the  contributions  to 
religious  literature  by  the  Berkshire  pulpit. 
In  West's  Life  of  Samuel  Hopkins,  and  in 
Hyde's  Life  of  Stephen  West,  as  in  all  the 
"  Lives  "  of  Edwards,  the  story  between  the 
lines  which  interests  us  here  is  that  of  the  re- 
gion. A  complete  bibliographical  list  of  all 
the  theological  works,  biographies,  sermons, 
and  addresses,  by  those  who  have  at  one  time 
and  another  had  a  more  or  less  prolonged  con- 
nection with  the  Berkshire  pulpit,  from  Ed- 
wards and  Hopkins  to  Hunger  and  Gladden 
and  Parkhurst,  would  include  many  noteworthy 


94  Lenox 

contributions  to  American  religious  literature. 
I  have  re-examined  much  of  this  material  for 
the  Berkshire  story,  and  much  of  it  has  been 
interwoven,  or  will  be,  in  the  progress  of  these 
chapters.  One  very  rare  book,  Memoirs  of 
Housatunnuk  Indians, by  Samuel  Hopkins  (of 
Springfield),  I  have  only  found  copies  of  in 
Boston  and  Springfield,  and  it  brings  one  in  the 
most  realistic  way  face  to  face  with  Indian  life, 
beliefs,  and  customs  in  Stockbridge  one  hundred 
and  sixty-seven  years  ago  in  its  truly  aboriginal 
cast.  Here  we  see  the  primitive  settlements, 
with  Captain  Konkapot  at  Wnahktukook 
(Stockbridge),  and  Lieutenant  Umpachene  at 
Skatekook  (Sheffield),  farther  down  the  river, 
and  now  and  then  Yokun  appears  on  the 
scene ;  we  see  great  meetings  between  the 
Indians  and  the  State  Commissioners  taking 
place  with  the  giving  of  belts  of  wampum;  we 
see  Sergeant  moving  about  in  the  picture,  now 
preaching  in  their  own  tongue  to  the  blank- 
eted redskins,  now  going  with  them  on  their 
protracted  expeditions  into  the  sugar -bush, 
where  they  seem  to  have  been  the  first  to 
have  discovered  the  art  of  making  maple- 
sugar,  and  now  busy  with  the  scheme  that 
rested  on  his  heart,  the  industrial  education 
of  the  Indian,  thus  anticipating  by  a  century 


Lenox  in  Literature  95 

and  a  half  Hampton,  Carlisle,  and  Tuskegee. 
We  read  on  the  pages  of  this  old  chronicler 
the  rather  astonishing  information  that  "  Ser- 
geant was  taken  with  the  intermitting  \_szi\ 
fever  the  common  distemper  of  all  new-comers 
to  Housatunnuk  "  ;  certainly  hygienic  condi- 
tions are  better  now  and  no  country  is  more 
noted  for  its  salubrity.  We  also  read  in  this 
ancient  memoir  that 

"  the  large  heap  of  stones,  I  suppose  ten  cartloads, 
on  the  way  to  Wnahktukook  (Stockbridge)  have  been 
thrown  together  by  Indians  in  passing  without  know- 
ing the  end  of  it,  only  they  (the  Indians)  say  their 
fathers  used  to  do  so  and  they  do  it  because  it  was  the 
custom  of  their  fathers." 

I  cannot  believe  that  Dr.  Hopkins  understood 
correctly  in  this  visit  of  1 734  what  later  and 
uniformly  has  been  given  as  the  reason  for 
this  collection  of  stones,  viz.,  to  mark  a  grave, 
—hence  "  Monument  "  Mountain. 

But  let  us  come  to  some  of  the  other  great 
names  in  American  literature  which  are  asso- 
ciated with  the  Berkshire  picture.  Miss 
Catherine  Sedgwick  and  Nathaniel  Hawthorne 
will  be  noticed  in  separate  chapters.  Their 
names  are  written  imperishably  into  the  re- 
gion. We  have  already  seen  in  this  chapter 
the  brilliant  coterie  of  women  whom  Miss 


96  Lenox 

Sedgwick  attracted  to  the  Berkshires  ;  and  in 
Hawthorne's  Note-books  the  records  of  the 
visits  of  eminent  literati  are  faithfully  kept. 
Oliver  Wendell  Holmes  is  a  frequent  caller; 
also  Herman  Melville.  Here  are  other  entries  : 
"E.  P.  Whipple  called";  "J.  T.  Headley 
called"  ;  "  J.  R.  Lowell  called  in  the  evening"  ; 
"  Walked  to  Scott's  pond  [Laurel  Lake]  with 
Ellery  Channing."  Indeed,  with  Hawthorne's 
American  Note-books  in  hand  the  Berkshire 
landscape  not  only  possesses  the  charm  of  re- 
flecting from  all  its  varied  points  and  angles 
his  descriptions  but  is  peopled  with  congenial 
literary  spirits.  It  is  enough  to  say,  in  reply 
to  the  oft-assertion  that  Hawthorne's  house 
was  in  Stockbridge,  that  while  technically  that 
is  true  the  novelist  could  flip  a  stone  over  the 
line  into  Lenox,  wrote  "  Lenox  "  in  his  note- 
books, went  to  the  Lenox  post-office  daily  for 
his  mail,  and  was  identified  in  every  way  with 
Lenox. 

Stand  with  me  a  moment,  then,  on  the  site 
of  the  "  little  red  house,"  and  let  me  call  up 
some  other  sacred  literary  associations  of  the 
region,  as  our  eyes  rest  here  and  there  on 
the  varied  points  of  interest.  Remember  that 
the  spot  where  we  are  standing  is  itself 
redolent  with  the  inspirations  of  Hawthorne's 


Lenox  in  Literature  97 

genius  and  impregnated  with  the  memories  of 
his  great  literary  achievements.  "  Stockbridge 
Bowl "  lies  down  at  our  feet,  beyond  are  the 
mountains,  and  behind  us  to  the  right  rises 
"  Bald  Head,"  while  to  the  left,  also  in  the 
rear,  the  ground  continually  ascending  is 
crowned  at  its  summit  by  the  ancient  town  of 
Lenox,  with  its  many  villas  peeping  out  from 
their  eminences  and  over  all  the  gilded  belfry- 
tower  of  the  village  church  looming  up  behind. 
It  is  a  spectacle  of  rare  beauty  profaned  only 
by  eyes  that  cannot  see  its  loveliness.  "  Monu- 
ment" in  front  has  its  separate  delight  as  in 
the  Note-book,  changing  from  green  to  red 
and  from  red  to  white  to  suit  the  seasons,  now 
"enveloped  in  mist,"  now  "  enwreathed  with 
cloud,"  now  a  "  headless  sphinx  wrapped 
in  a  Persian  shawl."  Clad  in  the  investiture 
of  Hawthorne's  poetic  conceptions,  it  greets 
with  reflected  glare  from  its  "  beetling  cliffs  " 
the  first  pencillings  of  dawn,  and  "  floats  in  a 
sea  of  chrysolite  and  opal  "  at  close  of  day. 
Hawthorne's  genius,  however,  is  not  the  only 
one  which  comes  back  to  us  from  its  rugged 
sides  and  yonder  picturesque  and  entrancing 
landscape.  William  Cullen  Bryant,  who  was 
born  in  Cummington,  in  the  neighboring 
county  of  Hampshire,  November  3,  1794,  came 


98  Lenox 

to  Great  Harrington  in  1816,  and  opening 
there  a  law  -  office  passed  the  ensuing  six 
years  in  the  Berkshire  village.  Here  he 
was  "  town  clerk,"  here  married.  Though 
his  earliest  consciousness  of  poetic  power 
had  been  awakened  before  coming  hither, 
yet  its  acknowledgment  by  the  world  was 
delayed  through  his  own  modesty  in  making 
public  the  productions  of  his  genius.  Antici- 
pating his  friend  Catherine  Sedgwick  in  the 
neighboring  village  of  Stockbridge,who  in  1822 
literally  "awoke  one  morning  and  found  her- 
self famous"  through  the  appearance  of  her 
first  novel,  A  New  England  Tale,  Bryant  by 
the  publication  of  Thanatopsis  in  1817  and 
Lines  to  a  Waterfowl  in  1818  evoked  in- 
stant recognition.  It  was  impossible  for  Great 
Barrington  to  keep  him  from  the  larger  field 
his  talents  demanded,  and  the  poet  removed 
to  New  York.  But  his  poems  Green  River 
and  Monument  Mountain  are  inseparably  and 
imperishably  associated  with  his  Berkshire 
residence ;  the  former  the  Waumpa-nick-se- 
poot  of  the  Housatonic  Indians,  and  the  latter 
their  Maus-wa-see-khi.  Green  River  reflects, 
as  the  tranquil  waters  the  sylvan  or  pastoral 
scenes  along  its  banks,  the  inner  questionings 
of  the  poet 


Lenox  in  Literature  99 

"...    forced  to  drudge  for  the  dregs  of  men 
And  scrawl  strange  words  with  the  barbarous  pen," 

who  was  beginning  to  find  the  prosaic  duties 
of  town  clerk  irksome. 

"Yet  fair  as  thou  art,  thou  shun'st  to  glide 
Beautiful  stream!  by  the  village  side; 
But  windest  away  from  haunts  of  men, 
To  quiet  valley  and  shaded  glen, — 
And  forest,  and  meadow,  and  slope  of  hill 
Around  thee,  are  lonely,  lovely,  and  still. 
Lonely — save  when,  by  thy  rippling  tides, 
From  thicket  to  thicket  the  angler  glides; 
Or  the  simpler  comes  with  basket  and  book 
For  herbs  of  power  on  thy  banks  to  look; 
Or  haply,  some  idle  dreamer,  like  me 
To  wander,  and  muse,  and  gaze  on  thee 

But  I  wish  that  fate  had  left  me  free 
To  wander  these  quiet  haunts  with  thee 
Till  the  eating  cares  of  earth  should  depart 
And  the  peace  of  the  scene  pass  into  my  heart." 

Monument  Mountain  is  the  exquisitely  beauti- 
ful recital  of  the  Indian  legend  of  a  maiden 
who,  crossed  in  love,  because  she  could  not 
marry  her  cousin,  madly  and  fatally  threw  her- 
self from  its  "hanging  crags"  and  "bare  old 
cliffs"- 

'  Hugh  pillars  that  in  middle  heaven  upbear 
Their  weather-beaten  capitals,  here  dark 
With  the  thick  moss  of  centuries,  and  there 


ioo  Lenox 

Of  chalky-whiteness  where  the  thunderbolt 
Has  splintered  them." 

Look  again  from  the  "  boudoir-window  of 
the  red  house  "  at  the  "  round  head  of  the 
dome  of  Taconic  "  in  the  far  distance,  gener- 
ally, says  Hawthorne,  "a  dark  blue  unvaried 
mountain-top."  Then  follow  around  to  the 
right  the  miles  of  "intervening  hill-country" 
until  the  eye  rests  on  "Bald  Head"  rising 
directly  back  of  us,  and  then  read  those  descrip- 
tive preludes  in  The  Wonder  Book  for  Children. 
It  is  a  region  which  gives  back  to  us  the 
greatest  American  novelist,  Nathaniel  Haw- 
thorne, and  as  we  stand  looking  down  at 
"  Stockbridge  Bowl,"  a  burnished  mirror  at 
our  feet,  how  thronging  the  literary  associa- 
tions !  —  the  change  of  its  name  from  old  Mah- 
keenac  to  "  Stockbridge  Bowl  "  by  Catherine 
Sedgwick  ;  the  poem  of  which  it  is  the  subject, 
"high  set  among  the  breezy  hills,  a  classic 
vase,"  by  Mrs.  Sigourney  ;  and  finally  the 
walks  of  Hawthorne  with  his  children  across 
its  "  adamantine  surface  "  in  the  winter  season. 
At  the  foot  of  "  Monument"  as  the  eye  turns 
to  the  left  is  "  Ice  Glen  "  where  Crazy  Bet  in 
A  New  England  Tale  finds  in  its  wildness 
congenial  society  for  her  disordered  intellect, 
and  whence  she  roams  to  the  "  very  top  of 


Lenox  in  Literature  101 

Taghcounick."  Farther  around  but  hidden  by 
the  near  shoulder  of  "  Rattlesnake "  is  the 
Tyringham  valley,  where  last  summer  (1901) 
an  ex-President  of  the  United  States  had 
his  country-seat,  adjoining  that  of  his  friend, 
the  poet,  Richard  Watson  Gilder,  whose 
Rhyme  of  Tyringham  and  Evening  in  Tyring- 
ham Valley  are  in  rhythm,  description,  and 
depth  of  feeling  in  Mr.  Gilder's  best  vein.  I 
may  say,  in  passing,  that  this  very  spot  where 
we  are  standing,  the  site  of  Hawthorne's  "  lit- 
tle red  house,"  Mr.  Gilder  thinks  should  be 
appropriately  marked,  and  in  a  letter  to  the 
author  expressed  his  preference  that  the  me- 
morial should  take  the  form  of  an  exedra.  It 
is  a  focal  spot  where  Holmes  and  Lowell  and 
Hawthorne  stood  and  joined  hands  with  Bry- 
ant across  the  little  lake,  while  lesser  workmen 
in  the  guild  of  letters  oft-visitors  hither  range 
themselves  around,  and  up  from  the  village-on- 
the-plain  just  over  the  brow  of  yonder  knoll 
come  the  memories  of  one  of  the  most  illus- 
trious families  in  this  country  of  ours,  the  dis- 
tinguished family  of  the  Rev.  David  Dudley 
Field,  pastor  of  the  Stockbridge  church  (1819- 
37),  one  of  whom,  a  well-known  and  volumi- 
nous contributor  to  the  literature  of  travel,  the 
Rev.  Henry  M.  Field,  D.D.,  is  now  enjoying 


102  Lenox 

his  respite  after  a  busy  "  day's  work "  in  his 
loved  Berkshire  village. 

My  effort  to  trace  the  literary  thread  in  the 
Berkshire  story,  so  imperfectly  done,  is  nearly 
finished.  William  Ellery  Channing  spent  sev- 
eral weeks  in  Lenox,  a  guest  at  the  Berkshire 
Coffee -House  (now  Curtis  Hotel),  though 
most  of  the  time  in  the  company  of  the  Sedg- 
wicks,  during  the  summer  of  1842,  his  last 
summer  on  earth,  and  the  last  public  address 
he  ever  gave  was  delivered  August  ist  in  the 
village  church  on  the  hill.  This  period  of  his 
Memoirs  abounds  in  the  most  extravagant 
praise  of  the  Berkshire  environment,  the 
charming  informality  and  sweet  dignity  of  the 
life  at  the  Sedgwicks',  the  "  fine  sights  "  and 
"pleasant  excursions,"  and  above  all  the 
liberty-loving  spirit  which  a  mountain-country 
created.  He  calls  it  all  "truly  Elysian  "  and 
says  again  and  again  it  was  the  "  happiest  sum- 
mer of  his  life."  The  occasion  of  the  address 
from  which  we  have  taken  a  local  reference 
(see  p.  9)  was  the  anniversary  of  emancipation 
in  the  West  Indies  and  of  Channing  at  the 
time  of  its  delivery  there  are  many  beauti- 
ful memorabilia  in  the  Memoirs  of  Channing, 
and  in  Catherine  Sedgwick's  Life  and  Letters. 
Mrs.  Charles  Sedgwick  says  :  "  I  shall  never 


s  s 
S  s 
o  ,2 


Lenox  in  Literature  103 

forget  Dr.  Channing's  appearance  in  the  pulpit 
that  day.  His  countenance  was  full  of  spirit- 
ual beauty  and  he  looked  like  one  inspired." 

Another  distinguished  preacher  whose  mem- 
ory is  imperishably  intertwined  with  the 
literary  traditions  of  Lenox  is  Henry  Ward 
Beecher,  and  one  of  his  best-known  books, 
Star  Papers,  is  a  Berkshire  nature-study.  Mr. 
Beecher  acquired  property  in  Lenox  in  1853, 
and  thence  on  for  a  few  summers  took  his 
vacations  in  these  tip-top  eyries  of  the  Berk- 
shire hills.  Previous  to  his  Berkshire  sojourn 
he  had  been  taking  his  annual  outing  at  Salis- 
bury, on  the  south  side  of  Taghconic  Dome, 
but  in  the  summer  of  1853  he  goes  prospect- 
ing into  the  hill-country  for  a  summer  home. 
As  he  passes  through  Great  Barrington  he 
feels  that  "  it  is  one  of  those  places  which  one 
never  enters  without  wishing  never  to  leave  ; 
it  is  a  place  to  be  desired  as  a  summer  resi- 
dence," but  on  reaching  Stockbridge  he  writes  : 

"  I  came  near  purchasing  the  old  house  of  Dr.  West 
for  a  summer-home;  it  is  located  on  the  northern  ridge 
where  one  sees  the  Housatonic  winding,  in  great  cir- 
cuits, through  the  valley  and  the  horizon  piled  and  ter- 
raced with  mountains." 

Mr.  Beecher  adds,  as  he  passes  through  Stock- 
bridge,  "  an  excellent  hotel  is  kept  and  is 


Lenox 


usually  well  filled  in  summer  with  refugees 
from  the  arid  city."  Lenox,  however,  lured 
the  rider  on,  rising  every  now  and  then  to 
"  overlook  the  bold  prospect,"  and  here  he 
confesses  himself  captivated  by  the  "  singular 
purity  and  exhilarating  effects  of  its  air  and 
by  the  beauty  of  its  mountain  scenery.  One 
would  hardly  seek  another  home  in  summer,  if 
he  should  spend  July  or  October  in  Lenox." 
I  am  not  going  to  weary  the  reader  with  the 
vivid  descriptions  of  Berkshire  scenery  or 
spread  out  the  pastoral  idylls  in  prose  which 
everywhere  abound  throughout  the  Star  Pa- 
pers, showing  how  thoroughly  Mr.  Beecher's 
poetic  temperament,  which  he  says  he  received 
from  his  mother,  was  en  rapport  with  the 
region. 

I  have  not  tried  to  make  a  list  of  distin- 
guished literati  who  have  from  time  to  time 
sojourned  for  a  longer  or  a  shorter  period  in 
Lenox.  Such  a  list  would  include  nearly 
every  one  of  prominence  in  American  letters. 
It  is  quite  enough  to  add,  in  conclusion,  that 
Lenox  and  its  environment  are  becoming 
known  through  specific  books  on  the  Berkshire 
country.  Catherine  Sedgwick  wove  the  scenes 
and  the  people  of  her  native  region  into 
some  of  her  stories,  and  we  have  already  al- 


Lenox  in  Literature  105 

luded  to  the  part  Berkshire  plays  in  Haw- 
thorne's Wonder  Book  for  Children.  Very 
lately  two  books  have  appeared,  John  Cole- 
man  Adams's  Nature  Studies  in  Berkshire,  a 
charming  prose-poem  devoted  exclusively  to 
the  natural  beauty  of  the  region,  and  Edward 
Bellamy's  Duke  of  Stockbridge.  Mrs.  Burton 
Harrison  in  Leaves  from  the  Diary  of  Ruth 
Marchmont,  Spinster,  deals  rather  with  social 
Lenox,  yet  she  makes  her  "spinster"  ardent 
in  praise  of  the  scenic  beauty. 

"  Some  of  the  views  from  the  verandas  of  this  house 
where  I  am  staying,"  writes  Ruth,  "  are  like  Turner's 
best  canvases  in  point  of  rich,  soft,  luminous  color. 
I  do  not  wonder  that  wealthy,  leisurely  folk  come 
here  to  linger  away,  from  New  York  and  Boston  until 
nearly  Christmas-time.  The  air  of  the  place,  the 
houses  and  the  entertainments  are  more  quiet  and 
mellow  than  anything  in  Newport  or  Bar  Harbor. 
The  inevitable  dinners  and  luncheons  go  on  just  as  in 
the  other  resorts  named,  but  one  comes  in  to  dress  for 
them  after  rides  and  drives  into  the  very  fastnesses  of 
Nature,  through  shady,  moss-carpeted  woods  amid  a  rain 
of  tinted  leaves,  or  upon  good  roads  high  among  the 
hills  looking  over  miles  of  peaceful  rural  country.  .  .  . 
There  is  more  land  enclosed  here,  for  purposes  of  pleas- 
ure, around  the  houses,  than  in  most  places  of  resort  I 
know;  and  I  dare  say  that,  after  all,  is  what  gives  Lenox 
its  air  of  undeniable  good-breeding  and  reserve." 

It  fits  into  this  reference  to  country-houses  in 


io6  Lenox 

the  Berkshire  resort  to  give  a  description  of 
one  from  another  author,  Charles  Dudley 
Warner,  who  has  brought  Lenox  into  his 
story,  A  Little  Journey  around  the  World. 

"  The  Arbuser  cottage  at  Lenox  was  really  a  magnifi- 
cent villa.  Richardson  had  built  it.  At  a  distance  it 
had  the  appearance  of  a  mediaeval  structure  with  its  low 
doorways,  picturesque  gables,  and  steep  roofs,  and  in 
its  situation  on  a  gentle  swell  of  green  turf  backed  by 
native  forest-trees  it  imparted  to  the  landscape  an  ances- 
tral tone  which  is  much  valued  in  these  days.  But  near 
to,  it  was  seen  to  be  medievalism  adapted  to  the  sunny 
hospitality  of  our  climate,  with  generous  verandas  and 
projecting  balconies  shaded  by  gay  awnings,  and  within 
spacious,  open  to  the  breezes,  and  from  its  broad  windows 
offering  views  of  lawns  and  flower-beds  and  ornamental 
trees,  of  a  great  sweep  of  pastures,  and  forests  and  min- 
iature lakes,  with  graceful  and  reposeful  hills  on  the 
horizon." 

There  are  other  references  in  Mr.  Warner's 
book  to  Lenox  —  mostly  to  social  Lenox,  a 
theme  which  appears  and  reappears  in  Robert 
Grant's  Face  to  Face ;  and  there  are  other 
books,  of  lesser  worth,  where  we  thread  our 
way  through  familiar  Berkshire  scenes. 

Is  it  any  wonder  then  that  a  Berkshire  man 
finds  it  impossible  to  speak  of  his  country  in 
anything  else  than  the  language  of  exaggera- 
tion ?  It  certainly  is  not  the  least  charm  about 


Lenox  in  Literature 


107 


Lenox,  and  its  environment  in  the  Berkshire 
hills,  that  the  whole  country  hereabouts  is 
associated  with  some  of  the  mightiest  intel- 
lects and  most  graceful  writers  America  has 
produced. 


Ill 


CATHERINE    MARIA    SEDGWICK:     HER 
MESSAGE  AND  HER  WORK 

THE  fate  of  the  popular  novelist  is  pathetic  : 
like  some  rare  flower,  radiant  and  redo- 
lent, yet  after  it  is  "pressed,"  its  beauty  faded, 
its  fragrance  departed,  its  distorted  form  brit- 
tle and  ready  to  drop  to  pieces, — a  breath  al- 
most, and  it  is  gone.  Thousands  and  hundreds 
of  thousands  of  readers  in  our  own  and  other 
lands  literally  hung  on  Miss  Sedgwick's  pen 
during  the  long  period  of  her  literary  creative- 
ness,  lasting  about  thirty-six  years,  and  waited 
eagerly  for  her  books  to  appear ;  now  she  is 
scarcely  read,  and  only  faintly  known,  more 's 
the  pity  !  A  pioneer  in  American  literature, 
a  voluminous  writer  of  novels,  perhaps  a  score 
in  all,  and  short  tales,  the  intimate  friend  of 
the  leading  thinkers  in  many  countries  besides 
her  own,  a  moralist  who  never  loses  sight  of 
the  highest  ideals,  a  keen  observer  of  life  and 

108 


Catherine  Maria  Sedgwick         109 

of  the  manners  and  customs  of  her  own  times, 
a  passionate  lover  of  nature  and  thoroughly 
en  rapport  with  the  scenic  fascinations  of  her 
native  Berkshire,  Miss  Catherine  Sedgwick 
needs  to  make  no  apology  to  the  present  age 
for  that  very  natural  liking  we  all  have  to  be 
remembered,  but  deserves,  on  the  contrary,  to 
be  perpetually  enshrined  in  her  appropriate 
niche  in  the  world's  great  Temple  of  Litera- 
ture. 

Edmund  Gosse  has  perhaps  rightly  said 
of  eighteenth-century  English  novelists  that 
the  names  of  three  only  stand  in  the  front 
rank  :  Richardson,  Fielding,  and  Smollett ;  but 
who  ever  reads  their  works  to-day  outside 
of  the  class-room  ?  Defoe's  Robinson  Crusoe 
(1719),  Swift's  Gullivers  Travels  (1726),  and 
Goldsmith's  Vicar  of  Wake  field  (1766),  and 
one  or  two  other  tales  by  English  writers  of 
that  century  may  be  found  in  the  book-stalls 
to-day.  Smollett's  Peregrine  Pickle  (1751), 
Fielding's  Tom  Jones  (1749),  Johnson's  Ras- 
selas  (1759),  Sterne's  Tristram  Shandy 
(1761)  and  Sentimental  Journey  (1768),  com- 
plete the  list  of  English  works  of  fiction  which 
may  with  any  fairness  be  said  to  have  retained 
their  hold  on  the  reading-public,  albeit  a  very 
faint  and  possibly  weakening  one.  Literary 


1 10  Lenox 

immortality  is  not  easily  won.  Catherine  Sedg- 
wick  belongs  to  another  century, —  the  nine- 
teenth; and  one  would  not  be  justified  in  placing 
her  with  the  great  immortals,  but  certainly  she 
takes  a  foremost  place  among  the  women  who 
have  during  these  last  hundred  years  wrought 
at  the  "  forge  of  thought," — Miss  Edgeworth, 
Jane  Austen,  Miss  Mitford,  Miss  Craik-Mu- 
lock,  Miss  Martineau,  Mrs.  Jameson,  Miss 
Strickland,  Mrs.  Sigourney,  Miss  Miihlbach, 
Miss  Kirkland,  Mrs.  Harriet  Beecher  Stowe, 
Miss  Marian  Evans  (Geo.  Eliot),  Mme.  Du- 
devant  (Geo.  Sand),  Margaret  Fuller  Ossoli, 
Mrs.  Oliphant,  Mrs.  Prentiss,  Mrs.  Alcott, 
Amelia  E.  Barr,  et  multce  alice.  Possibly  I 
have  mentioned  some  names  in  this  list  of 
female  writers,  once  splendid  and  potent, 
names  to  conjure  by,  now  dimmed  and  for- 
gotten ;  yet  what  of  that  ?  They  rendered  a 
real  service  in  their  day.  Have  they  no  claims 
on  us  for  that  ? 

Catherine  Maria  Sedgwick  shares  with 
Cooper  and  Irving  the  place  of  pioneers  in 
American  fiction,  Irving  finding  his  materials 
in  the  Dutch  region  along  the  Hudson ; 
Cooper  his  in  the  red  man's  wigwam  and  war- 
path ;  and  Miss  Sedgwick  hers  in  the  simple, 
rustic  scenes  of  New  England  life.  Each  was 


Catherine  Maria  Sedgwick 


in 


original  in  the  field  chosen,  and  the  first  to 
enter  it ;  therefore  a  sort  of  prototype  of  all 
the  rest  who  have  gleaned  after  them,  as  Mrs. 
Stowe  later  was  the  first  to  enter  our  great 
Southern  section  and  portray  its  life.  These 
foundation  writers  deserve  to  be  recalled  for 
what  they  did.  Irving's  grave  at  Sleepy  Hol- 
low is  the  shrine  of  literary  pilgrims,  as  the 
vandal-hands  of  those  who  have  chipped  its 
slab  attest ;  Cooper's  overlooking  Glimmer- 
glass  and  hard  by  the  church  where  he  wor- 
shipped is  another  ;  but  someway  I  greatly  fear 
Catherine  Sedgwick's  at  Stockbridge  misses 
this  grateful  incense  of  the  remembrance  of 
her  countrymen.  And  yet  her  novels,  a  score 
or  more,  served  in  their  way  as  distinct  a  pur- 
pose as  either  of  those  "  immortals,"  were 
quite  as  popular  in  England  as  they  were  in 
America,  passed  through  edition  after  edition 
and  into  translations  in  French,  Italian,  Ger- 
man, and  Spanish,  and  were  reviewed  by  such 
magazines  here  as  the  North  American,  and  on 
the  other  side  as  the  London  Quarterly,  Athe- 
nceum,  and  Westminster.  The  distinguished 
Miss  Mitford  writes  Miss  Sedgwick  from  Eng- 
land (September  6,  1830),  when  our  American 
novelist  was  still  in  the  beginning  of  her  liter- 
ary career,  this  very  graceful  tribute  : 


i i 2  Lenox 

"I  want  to  express  my  strong  feelings  of  obligation 
for  Redwood  and  A  New  England  Tale.  .  .  ." 
"  Cooper,"  Miss  Mitford  continues,  "  is  certainly,  next 
to  Scott,  the  most  popular  novel-writer  of  the  age. 
Washington  Irving  enjoys  a  high  and  fast  reputation; 
the  eloquence  of  Dr.  Channing  if  less  widely  is  perhaps 
more  deeply  felt;  and  a  lady  whom  I  need  not  name  takes 
her  place  amongst  these  great  men  as  Miss  Edgeworth 
does  among  our  Scotts  and  Chalmerses  ";  and  Miss 
Mitford  adds,  "  your  novels  and  those  of  Cooper  will 
make  American  literature  known  and  valued  in  Eng- 
land." 

Let  us  try  then  to  gain  a  nearer  view  of  this 
first  female  novelist  of  America, — first  certainly 
in  the  order  of  time,  and  yielding  only  the  first 
place  in  the  matter  of  contemporaneous  popu- 
larity to  Harriet  Beecher  Stowe  of  all  the 
women  writers  America  has  yet  produced. 

Catherine  Sedgwick  is  a  distinctive  Berk- 
shire product.  A  physical  environment  of 
mountains,  if  one  lends  himself  to  their  in- 
fluence, their  ruggedness  and  beauty,  the  lovely 
views  and  vistas  they  command,  the  breadth 
and  sweep  of  vision  from  their  summits,  the 
lights  and  shades  and  hues  of  their  slopes, — the 
green  of  summer,  the  fire-red  tints  of  autumn, 
the  hoary-heads  of  winter,  the  cloud-shadows 
always  playing  up  and  down  their  sides  ;  a 
physical  environment  of  this  sort,  I  say,  must 


Catherine  Maria  Sedgwick        113 

produce,  has  always  produced,  a  distinct  race 
of  men.  But  Nature  never  reveals  her  secrets 
to  those  who  only  get  out  of  her  the  streams 
which  turn  their  mills,  or  the  ore  which  fills 
their  coffers,  or  the  building-sites  which  put  a 
fancy  value  on  their  farms.  Our  gods  and 
shrines  give  to  us  only  what  we  bring  to  them. 
Catherine  Sedgwick  responded  to  the  entranc- 
ing picturesqueness  of  the  region  with  rare 
loveliness  of  character  and  to  the  far-off  reach 
of  vision  the  mountains  afforded  with  a  breadth 
of  intellectual  vision  which  made  her  seventy 
years  ahead  of  her  time.  We  have  only  now 
just  begun,  so  to  speak,  to  come  around  to  her 
views,  and  her  first  novel,  A  New  England  Tale, 
which  in  my  judgment  she  never  surpassed, 
was  written  seventy-eight  years  ago.  What  a 
beautiful  tribute  to  that  loveliness  of  character 
so  conspicuous  in  Miss  Catherine  Sedgwick  is 
this  from  her  intimate  friend,  Mrs.  Anna  Jame- 
son, the  distinguished  author,  who,  about  to 
leave  America,  writes  (December  23,  1837)  to 
her  American  craftswoman  : 

"  I  never  think  of  you  without  being  glad  and  grateful 
to  have  known  you,  to  have  you  to  think  of  and  talk  of; 
so  farewell,  and  God  bless  you;  keep  me  a  little  wee 
corner  in  that  good  heart";  and  later  (February,  1838), 
when  actually  sailing  away  from  these  shores,  writes  Miss 

8 


ii4  Lenox 

Sedgwick  thus:  "  About  four  in  the  afternoon  I  was  told 
we  were  just  losing  sight  of  land,  so  I  crawled  up  and 
took  one  last  look  as  the  shores  of  America  faded  away 
under  the  western  sun  and  in  my  heart  I  stretched  out 
my  arms  to  you  for  a  last  embrace  and  blessed  that  land 
because  it  was  your  land." 

But  with  this  attractive  and  winning  character, 
which  all  who  knew  her  felt  the  spell  of,  went 
great  independence,  liberty,  breadth  of  thought, 
and  freedom  of  utterance  to  the  last  degree. 
She  was  heretic,  moralist,  Christian  all  in  one. 
As  she  herself  says  in  her  autobiography,  and 
as  her  novels  and  tales  everywhere  attest, 
"  Love  of  freedom  and  a  habit  of  doing  our 
own  thinking  has  always  characterized  our 
clan."  The  dominant  theology  of  her  time", 
whose  tyranny  was  the  blight  upon  all  spiritual 
life,  was  mercilessly  exposed  and  rendered  hors 
de  combat  at  the  point  of  her  pen. 

Yes,  mountain  scenery  has  a  way  of  beauti- 
fying and  broadening,  inspiring,  strengthening, 
and  enriching  character,  so  that  what  Miss 
Sedgwick  became  she  owed  in  some  degree  to 
her  environment,  but  birth  and  training  were 
even  far  more  creative  influences.  Born  in 
1 789  in  Stockbridge,  she  was  reared  amid 
plenty,  culture,  and  refinement,  and  the  society 
of  kinsfolk  who,  with  her,  had  in  their  veins 


Catherine  Maria  Sedgwick        115 

the  very  best  blood  in  Berkshire.  She  lived 
to  be  seventy-eight  years  old,  dying  in  1867, 
and  roughly  it  may  be  said  that  the  first  half 
of  her  life  was  spent  in  Stockbridge  and  the 
latter  half  in  Lenox,  though  both  periods  were 
much  diversified  by  regular  and  prolonged 
stays  in  New  York,  at  the  homes  of  her 
brothers,  themselves  men  of  the  highest  legal 
and  social  standing  in  that  city.  Catherine 
Sedgwick  came  of  distinguished  parentage ; 
her  father  eminent  throughout  the  common- 
wealth and  country  for  his  public  services  as  a 
soldier  of  the  Revolution,  Congressman,  United 
States  Senator,  and  Judge  of  the  Supreme 
Court,  and  enjoying  the  rare  honor  of  Wash- 
ington's friendship  and  confidence  ;  her  mother 
a  Dwight,  connected  by  birth  with  the  Wil- 
liams, the  Hopkins,  and  the  Sargents,  "river- 
gods,"  as  they  were  called,  of  the  valleys 
to  the  east.  Catherine's  girlhood  was  just 
one  of  those  ordinary  girlhoods  which  belong 
to  any  one  of  good  family  ;  and  especially  to 
one  whose  father  served  in  the  highest  public 
station,  only  at  home  for  brief  intervals.  At 
eleven  years  of  age,  in  the  year  1 800,  she  visits 
New  York  and  attends  dancing-school  ;  at 
thirteen  we  find  her  at  Payne's  school  at 
Boston ;  and  during  the  years  immediately 


n6  Lenox 

following  at  school  in  Vermont  and  in  Albany ; 
and  many  visits  to  New  York  City  were  also 
recorded.  To  one  who  reflects  on  the  means 
of  getting  about  in  those  early  days,  and  on 
the  very  brilliant  intellectual  company  into 
which  she  was  constantly  thrown,  it  will  not 
seem  strange  that  Catherine  was  early  broad- 
ened and  matured  beyond  the  maidens  of  her 
native  village,  or  moulded  by  influences  which 
ripened  and  deepened  her  mental  and  spiritual 
life.  In  1807  her  mother  died,  Catherine  then 
being  eighteen,  but  while  a  loss  it  was  in  one 
sense  a  relief,  as  the  mother  had  been  a  chronic 
nervous  invalid,  whose  rest  came  only  in  the 
mercifulness  of  death  itself.  In  the  six  years 
following,  her  father  marrying  again  after,  as 
Miss  Sedgwick  says,  the  traditional  "year  and 
a  day,"  the  New  York  visits  are  many  and  fre- 
quent ;  and  we  are  to  think  of  the  New  York 
of  that  period  as  an  altogether  different  affair 
from  the  modern,  enormous  city.  The  future 
novelist  was  there  gathering  all  unknown  to 
herself  the  materials  for  some  of  her  best 
stories — The  Linwoods,  Live  and  Let  Live, 
Married  or  Single  for  example,  which  give 
us  a  very  valuable  picture  of  early  New  York. 
In  1813  we  find  Catherine  in  Boston  with  her 
father,  whom  she  accompanies  in  his  invalid 


Catherine  Maria  Sedgwick        117 

condition  for  treatment,  and  there  at  her  aged 
parent's  deathbed  the  services  of  a  minister, 
William  Ellery  Channing,  are  procured  and 
there  begins  the  deep  and  abiding  friendship 
of  Miss  Sedgwick  and  Dr.  Channing,  which 
lasted  until  the  death  of  that  illustrious  teacher  ; 
a  friendship  which  doubtless  went  far  to  lead 
Miss  Sedgwick,  eight  years  after  her  father's 
death,  out  of  the  orthodox  pale  into  the  Uni- 
tarian Church  and  thus  into  the  extremely 
effective  service  she  rendered  the  cause  of 
truth  by  subjecting  the  sterile  orthodoxy  of 
her  day  to  the  sting  of  her  satire  and  the 
powerfulness  of  her  rebukes,  so  justly  deserved. 
I  pass  over  the  years  of  Miss  Sedgwick's 
life  immediately  after  her  father's  death,  when 
she  was  twenty-four  years  of  age,  and  was 
duly  installed  housekeeper  by  the  return  of 
her  step-mother  to  her  own  people.  In  Mar- 
ried or  Single  Miss  Sedgwick  makes  one  of 
her  characters  say,  "  My  father  married  for  his 
second  wife  the  tenth  dilution  of  a  woman  "; 
and  I  have  wondered  if  the  novelist  had  not 
in  mind  her  own  step-mother,  to  whom  she 
refers  in  her  biography  in  the  not  very  compli- 
mentary way, — as  having  "  left  us  without  in- 
spiring either  respect  or  affection."  From 
1813,  then,  Catherine  was  housekeeper  in  the 


n8  Lenox 

old  Stockbridge  home  for  her  brothers,  during 
a  period  of  ten  years  or  so,  with  visits  thrown 
in  here  and  there,  to  Boston,  New  York,  Phila- 
delphia, Baltimore,  and  Washington.  The 
"  War  of  1812"  came  and  went,  and  during  one 
of  the  winters  of  that  war  some  "  French  offi- 
cers in  the  British  service  were  quartered  at 
Stockbridge  as  prisoners,"  affording  Catherine 
many  agreeable  diversions.  The  country  was 
developing  a  national  character ;  the  "  era  of 
good  feeling "  was  approaching ;  the  democ- 
racy of  Jefferson,  Madison,  and  Monroe  was 
steadily  tending  towards  a  more  conservative 
ideal;  the  great  Erie  Canal  was  being  built; 
already  great  inventions  were  startling  the 
world;  and  in  New  York  City  where  Catherine 
passed  so  much  of  her  time  De  Witt  Clinton 
was  the  stuff  mayors  were  made  of.  There 
was,  however,  no  fictitious  literature,  or  what 
there  was,  was  so  under  the  ban  that  to  read 
novels  was  to  court  the  wrath  of  God  and  in- 
vite the  disfavor  of  the  Church.  New  Eng- 
land was  being  torn  and  rent  by  the  coming 
of  the  Unitarian  schism,  and  in  1819,  only 
two  years  before  Miss  Sedgwick  withdrew 
from  orthodoxy,  the  Unitarian  Church  was 
formally  launched.  The  very  next  year  after 
her  change  of  faith  appeared  her  first  novel 


Catherine  Maria  Sedgwick        119 

(1822),  and  what  she  calls  a  "little  tract"  ran 
through  several  editions  here  and  abroad; 
surely  a  phenomenal  thing.  There  had  been 
no  literary  antecedents ;  Miss  Sedgwick  was  a 
woman  of  thirty-three  years  when  she  became 
an  author,  and  had  never  written  before.  Scott 
had  begun  eight  years  before  his  Waverley 
novels;  Irving  was  just  beginning  to  be  known; 
Cooper  had  answered  two  years  earlier  the 
British  taunt,  "  Who  ever  reads  an  American 
book?"  by  commencing  his  Leather-stocking 
Series ;  Hawthorne  was  but  eighteen  and  Bul- 
wer  but  seventeen  ;  Thackeray  was  eleven,  and 
Dickens  and  Harriet  Beecher  Stowe  but  ten; 
and  Marian  Evans  was  toddling,  a  girl  of  two. 
And  here  was  a  woman  of  thirty-three,  who 
had  never  shown  literary  workmanship,  at  a 
time  when  the  novel  was  tabooed,  achieving  in- 
stant and  world-wide  fame  !  And  achieving  it, 

o 

too,  by  a  brilliant  but  fearless  arraignment  of 
the  orthodox  faith  of  New  England.  She 
literally  "awoke  to  find  herself  famous";  and 
not  only  famous,  but  the  target  of  many  un- 
kind reproaches.  Her  first  book,  A  New  Eng- 
land Tale,  had  accomplished  its  purpose ;  and 
her  polished  quiver  had  winged  its  way  straight 
to  the  vulnerable  part  of  New  England  the- 
ology. Dogma  was  shown  up,  with  no 


1 20  Lenox 

unsparing  hand,  associated  with  sterile  and  un- 
lovely spiritual  life ;  the  scene  of  her  first  story 
is  laid  in  her  native  town  of  Stockbridge.  Usu- 
ally literary  promise  precedes  great  workman- 
ship in  letters  ;  there  are  hints  that  a  star  is  on 
the  eve  of  being  discovered ;  but  in  this  case 
it  bursts  full-orbed  upon  the  world  without  a 
warning. 

Everybody  was  surprised,  including  the  au- 
thor. She  writes  soon  after  the  appearance 
of  her  book: 

"  I  protest  against  being  supposed  to  make  any  pre- 
tension as  an  author  :  my  production  is  a  very  small  af- 
fair anyway.  ...  I  hardly  know  any  treasure  I 
would  not  exchange  to  be  where  I  was  before  my  crow- 
tracks  passed  into  the  hands  of  printer's  devils.  I  be- 
gan that  little  story  as  a  tract  and  because  I  wanted 
some  pursuit,  and  felt  spiritless  and  sad,  and  thought  I 
might  perhaps  lend  a  helping  hand  to  some  of  the 
humbler  virtues." 

Thence  on  the  life-story  of  Catherine  Maria 
Sedgwick  is  simply  the  story  of  her  books 
and  in  her  books,  one  following  another  in 
rapid  succession  for  thirty-six  years,  inter- 
rupted only  in  1839  by  a  trip  to  England  and 
Europe,  where  she  already  had  made  hosts 
of  friends  by  her  romances.  Two  years 
after  A  New  England  Tale  followed  Red- 


Catherine  Maria  Sedgwick        121 

wood  (1824),  and  immediately  ran  through 
several  editions,  appearing  abroad  in  English 
French,  German,  Italian,  and  Spanish  re- 
prints: a  book  of  which  G.  P.  R.  James  says: 
"  No  home  ought  to  be  without  a  copy  for 
study  and  amusement."  Her  brother  writes 
her  from  New  York:  "  The  book-sellers  are  all 
teasing  me  to  know  when  another  work  will 
come  from  the  author  of  Redwood.  They 
say  it  will  go  as  well  or  better  than  one  from 
Cooper  or  Irving."  The  Travellers  followed 
in  the  next  year  (1825);  and  two  years  later 
(1827),  her  most  celebrated  work,  Hope  Leslie, 
a  tale  of  the  early  colonists,  of  which  Donald 
G.  Mitchell  says  in  his  recent  American 
Lands  and  Letters: 

"  I  can  recall  even  now  with  vividness  the 
great  relish  with  which  —  more  than  sixty  years 
ago  —  a  company  of  school-boys  in  the  middle 
of  New  England  devoured  its  pages  and 
lavished  their  noisy  sympathies  upon  the 
perils  of  '  Everell '  or  the  daring  of  the  gener- 
ous '  Maganisca.'" 

With  the  publication  of  Clarence  (1830), 
The  Linwoods  (1835),  an<^  Tales  and  Sketches 
(1835),  Miss  Sedgwick's  literary  fame  was 
secure;  the  only  difficulty  was  to  keep  up 
with  the  demand.  It  was  not  far  from  this 


122  Lenox 

time  that  Catherine  removed  to  Lenox  for 
her  summer  home,  making  her  abode  with  her 
brother  Charles,  who  was  for  nearly  forty 
years  the  Clerk  of  the  Courts  in  that  moun- 
tain town,  then  the  county  seat  of  Berkshire, 
a  dignity  it  maintained  for  eighty-one  years. 
Now  a  fashionable  resort,  and  bereft  of  its 
character  as  a  seat  of  learning,  culture,  and 
great  social  distinction,  save  as  it  shines  by 
the  reflected  light  of  the  great  wealth  and 
refinement  of  those  who  have  pre-empted 
its  heights  for  magnificent  and  costly  villas, 
Lenox  was  then  in  the  zenith  of  its  glory 
as  the  shire-town.  It  is  with  this  town,  then, 
that  Miss  Sedgwick's  later  life  is  to  be  identi- 
fied; and  it  is  no  wonder  that  subsequently 
with  Hawthorne,  Fanny  Kemble,  John  O. 
Sargent,  Henry  Ward  Beecher,  and  Miss 
Sedgwick  living  in  the  immediate  neighbor- 
hood, and  such  persons  as  Lowell,  Holmes, 
Fields,  Sumner,  and  Channing  to  be  seen  in 
their  fellowship,  Lenox  should  have  been 
fairly  entitled  to  its  high  literary  renown. 

We  purposely  turned  from  the  story  of 
Miss  Sedgwick's  books  to  the  town  where  she 
cast  in  the  lot  of  her  later  years,  though 
with  regular  winter  sojourns  in  New  York 
City,  in  order  that  in  returning  to  the  record 


Catherine  Maria  Sedgwick        123 

of  her  works  we  may  notice  the  distinct  change 
in  her  literary  purpose  and  achievement. 
Fourteen  years  of  elaborate  story-writing  are 
followed  by  fourteen  years  of  tales  for  chil- 
dren :  Home  (1836)  ;  The  Poor  Rich  Man  and 
the  Rich  Poor  Man  (1836)  ;  Live  and  Let 
Live  (1837)  ;  Love-token  for  Children  (1838)  ; 
Means  and  Ends  (1838)  ;  Stories  for  Young 
Persons  ( 1 840)  ;  Wilton  Harvey  ;  Morals  and 
Manners  (1846)  ;  Facts  and  Fancies  for  School 
Days ;  Mount  Righi  Boy  (1848)  ;  City  Clerk 
and  his  Porter  (1850)  ;  and  The  Irish  Girl 
(1850).  Many  of  these  passed  through  several 
editions ;  and  the  first  five  named  I  would 
earnestly  commend  to  all.  All  these  short 
stories  for  juvenile  readers  have  the  ideal 
home  as  the  refrain  and  underlying  thought 
of  their  simple  tales.  Live  and  Let  Live  ought 
to  be  bound  up  with  the  Bible  and  called  the 
44  Epistle  to  the  Americans,"  by  Saint  Cath- 
erine ;  and  then  every  housewife  should  read  it 
at  least  once  a  year.  It  tells  the  story  of  the 
daughter  of  a  gentlewoman  going  out  to 
service,  and  the  whole  domestic  economy  of 
homes  is  shown  up  truthfully.  It  abounds  in 
practical  common-sense.  It  might  be  criti- 
cised as  too  Utopian  for  this  work-a-day  world, 
but  that 's  what  we  are  always  saying  about 


124  Lenox 

ideals  that  seem  too  high.  Home  is  another 
one  of  these  short  stories  whose  purpose  is 
sufficiently  told  in  its  title,  but  the  story 
itself  is  without  action, —  a  fault  that  could 
in  a  general  way  be  urgecj  against  all  Miss 
Sedgwick's  larger  works.  Plot  and  counter- 
plot, uncertainty  as  to  the  way  the  story  will 
end,  and  the  ability  to  manage  dramatic  situa- 
tions without,  so  to  speak,  lugging  them  in 
—  all  these  Miss  Sedgwick's  books  are  sadly 
deficient  in  and  that  is  one  reason  why  she  is 
no  longer  read.  But  the  question  will  arise, 
What  do  we  read  novels  for?  For  their 
story  merely  ?  Or  for  their  philosophy  of 
life,  their  description  of  manners  and  customs, 
their  literary  workmanship,  and  a  host  of 
other  things  more  important  ?  Miss  Sedg- 
wick  was  essentially  the  moralist,  more  than 
the  story-teller ;  and  in  these  short  stories 
written  by  the  mature  woman  in  the  prime  of 
her  vigor  she  reaches  her  high-water  mark. 
They  reached  multitudes,  passed  through 
several  editions,  were  universally  commended, 
and  to  this  day  and  for  this  day  might  be 
read  with  unspeakable  profit.  The  discipline 
of  home,  the  courtesy  and  sacrifice  and  re- 
finement that  should  obtain  in  the  family,  the 
development  of  the  child  by  emphasizing  self- 


Catherine  Maria  Sedgwick        125 

control  rather  than  mere  parental  control, 
the  treatment  of  domestic  help,  the  care  of 
the  children's  reading,  the  earnest  and  con- 
stant commendation  of  the  spiritual  life,  the 
hatred  of  shams,  .the  unwisdom  of  the  ac- 
cumulation of  large  fortunes  for  children,  the 
spirit  of  democracy,  the  cultivation  of  the 
amenities  of  life,  conversation  at  table,  habits 
of  politeness  and  reverence,  the  true  man- 
hood and  womanhood — all  these  make  a  mes- 
sage for  to-day ;  I  have  felt  my  own  heart 
moved  and  stirred  by  listening  to  the  sublime 
ethical  philosophy  of  these  short  stories ;  and 
I  feel  ready  to  endorse  what  Harriet  Martineau 
said  of  them  -.  "  Wonderfully  beautiful." 

When  Miss  Sedgwick  had  fulfilled  her  pur- 
pose of  speaking  to  the  young  people  of  the 
world  in  these  short  ethical  tractates,  she  laid 
aside  her  pen  for  awhile.  She  was  then  sixty- 
one  years  old  ;  Mitchell  calls  her  "  the  fine  old 
lady  of  the  Berkshire  highlands."  With  a 
rare  record  of  achievement,  with  the  rarest 
friendships  at  home  and  abroad,  it  might  have 
seemed  natural  to  lay  down  the  pen  forever, 
particularly  as  Dickens,  Thackeray,  Lytton, 
Reade  were  splendid  luminaries,  and  new  star- 
geniuses,  Marian  Evans  and  Mrs.  Stowe  were 
already  rising,  while  Catherine  Sedgwick's  star 


i26  Lenox 

was  westering.  But  the  old  spell  was  upon 
her  ;  one  more  message  must  be  said,  and  at 
sixty-eight  she  brings  out  her  last  great  work, 
Married  or  Single  (1857).  I  have  omitted 
from  the  record  of  her  books  two  biographies 
which  she  wrote,  one  on  Miss  Lucretia  David- 
son, a  Poet,  and  one  on  Joseph  Curtis,  a  Model 
Man;  also  a  book  of  travels  recounting  her 
stay  in  England  and  Europe,  Letters  from 
Abroad  to  Kindred  at  Home  (1841).  Any 
such  toiler  as  this  woman  could  rightly  have 
pleaded  at  sixty-eight  —  only  two  years  from 
the  three-score-and-ten  mark — exemption  from 
further  service,  but  it  is  a  great  tribute,  I 
think,  to  her  force  as  a  writer  that  this  last 
novel,  Married  or  Single,  was  one  of  her  very 
best.  Doctor  A.  P.  Peabody  pronounced  it 
"  the  best  of  the  series  which  she  wrote."  It 
has  more  action  than  her  other  stories ;  more 
literary  workmanship  ;  is  full  of  bits  of  wisdom 
on  the  married  state  ;  and  was  written  to  com- 
bat the  idea  that  an  unmarried  woman  must 
necessarily  view  her  life  as  useless.  Miss 
Sedgwick  was  a  believer  in  marriage  ;  but  she 
did  not  believe  that  a  single  life  need  make 
any  one  unhappy  or  useless  as  a  member  of 
society.  The  scenes  of  the  story  are  laid  in 
New  York  City  for  the  most  part,  and  portray 


Catherine  Maria  Sedgwick        127 

social  customs.  The  preparation  of  the  book 
was  slow  and  laborious  at  her  age,  and  accom- 
panied by  an  extremely  lonely  feeling  that  her 
old  readers  had  passed  away ;  yet  she  perse- 
vered and  accomplished  the  work  she  had  in 
hand.  The  pen  was  then  put  away,  and  her 
mission  done.  Ten  years  followed,  during 
which  her  life  was  a  sweet  benediction  in  and 
out  of  the  family  circle,  a  period  of  pleasant 
memories  and  tender  ministries,  of  rich  friend- 
ships and  correspondence  ;  the  slow  sinking  of 
her  sun  beneath  the  western  horizon,  a  mild 
light  of  peace  and  restfulness  suffusing  all,  and 
the  hush  of  evening's  silent  tread  stealing  upon 
life's  long  and  busy  day.  Catherine  Sedgwick 
died  in  1867,  at  the  age  of  seventy-eight,  and 
is  buried  in  the  Stockbridge  Cemetery  sur- 
rounded by  the  dust  of  many  generations  of 
her  kinsfolk. 

If  there  were  space  it  would  be  a  tribute 
worth  the  while  to  record  the  intimate  friend- 
ships of  this  woman  with  the  great  of  her  own 
land,  and  of  the  various  countries  of  Europe. 
A  few  only  must  suffice.  Friendships  they 
were,  real,  intense,  and  abiding.  Sismondi, 
Miss  Frederika  Bremer,  Mrs.  Jameson,  William 
Cullen  Bryant,  and  Dr.  Channing,  with  Fanny 
Kemble,  who  was  lured  to  the  Berkshires  by 


128  Lenox 

Miss  Sedgwick's  Influence,  and  afterwards  spent 
many  years  in  Lenox  as  her  constant  and  in- 
timate friend,  have  left  beautiful  tributes  to 
her. 

"  It  is  long  since  I  have  written  you  dearest 
Catherine,"  writes  Mrs.  Jameson;  "long  since 
I  have  heard  from  you.  One  might  as  well 
have  friends  in  heaven  as  across  the  Atlantic" 
—  that  was  sixty  years  ago  when  mail  delivery 
across  the  ocean  was  not  as  now  a  matter  of 
five  or  six  days —  "but  your  kind  affectionate 
face  is  before  me  and  I  feel  that  I  cannot  af- 
ford to  be  forgotten  by  you,  my  good  and 
dear  friend." 

Miss  Kemble  writes,  "  Catherine  Sedgwick 
is  my  best  friend  in  this  country,"  and  those 
who  know  the  story  of  the  intellectual  com- 
pany in  the  Lenox  Sedgwick  home,  graced  so 
often  by  Miss  Kemble's  appearance,  and  hon- 
ored by  her  Shakspearian  readings,  at  which 
many  literary  people  were  present,  can  well 
believe  that  theirs  was  no  common  friendship. 

Dr.  Channing  spent  his  last  summer  on  earth 
in  Lenox,  and  thus  writes  June  12,  1842  : 

"  This  summer  I  have  determined  to  try  inland  air, 

and  am  in  the  mountainous  district  of  Massachusetts. 

One  of   my  great  pleasures  is  that   my  friend 

Miss  Sedgwick  lives  a  door  or  two  from  me.     I  wish 


Catherine  Maria  Sedgwick. 
[From  the  painting  by  Ingham.} 


Catherine  Maria  Sedgwick        129 

you  could  see  her  in  her  family  almost  worshipped  not 
for  her  genius,  but  for  her  loveliness  of  character  and 
the  shedding  of  blessed  influences." 

William  Cullen  Bryant,  who  was  her  very 
warm  and  true  friend  throughout  a  half-century 
and  whose  genius  was  in  a  way  discovered  by 
the  Sedgwicks,  who  urged  him  to  leave  Great 
Barrington,  where  he  was  a  young  lawyer 
and  the  town  clerk,  and  come  to  New  York, 
has  left  a  picture  of  her  as  she  was  when 
Ingham  painted  his  fine  portrait  of  her  (1820)  : 
"  Well-formed,  slightly  inclining  to  plump- 
ness, with  regular  features,  eyes  beaming  with 
benevolence,  a  pleasing  smile,  a  soft  voice, 
and  gentle  and  captivating  manners."  Bry- 
ant's tribute  to  her  character  at  her  death  is 
exquisite,  but  is  too  long  to  be  reproduced  here. 

And  these  were  only  a  few  of  her  friends. 
She  knew  Longfellow,  and  Dana,  and  Hal- 
leek,  and  Cooper,  and  Willis,  and  Haw- 
thorne, and  Irving,  and  Fields,  and  Sumner, 
and  Curtis,  and  Mrs.  Stowe,  and  Mrs. 
Howe,  and  Bayard  Taylor,  and  on  the  other 
side  she  made  the  acquaintance  of  Hallam  and 
Macaulay  and  Carlyle.  And  yet  she  shines 
not  by  their  reflected  light ;  rather  do  they 
themselves  borrow  something  from  her,  though 
they  give  more. 


130  Lenox 

Of  the  memories  of  Miss  Sedgwick  in 
Lenox  and  Stockbridge,  of  the  many  refer- 
ences to  her  loved  Berkshire  in  her  works,  and 
of  the  services  she  rendered  the  cause  of  lib- 
eral theology  much  could  be  written,  but  I 
pass  on  to  speak  in  closing  of  her  place  in 
literature. 

It  is  evident  when  Cooper's  and  Irving's 
works  are  still  read,  and  Miss  Sedgwick,  their 
contemporary,  is  only  dimly  remembered,  if  at 
all,  that  her  works  are  not  of  the  first  order  in 
a  literary  point  of  view.  They  lack  action, 
and  they  lack  style,  or  rather  because  the 
"  style  is  the  man,"  they  lack  style  because  the 
woman  herself  was  perfectly  modest  and  trans- 
parent. Still  there  are  quotable  bits,  and  the 
characters  are  many  of  them  vividly  drawn ; 
and  the  philosophy  of  the  whole  is  sunny,  pro- 
found, truthful,  liberal,  and  deeply  religious. 
Miss  Mitford  is,  as  she  says  in  writing  to  a 
friend,  "surprised  at  the  freedom  from  cant  in 
Miss  Sedgwick's  works,  considering  the  do-me- 
good  nature  of  her  books."  They  are  moral 
tales  pre-eminently,  with  the  ever-accompany- 
ing thread  of  love, — a  string  on  which  she  ties 
her  pearls  of  wisdom  and  ethical  philosophy ; 
but  they  are  no  ordinary  pearls, — the  super- 
ficial advice,  the  homely  counsel,  the  preaching 


Catherine  Maria  Sedgwick        131 

of  pious  exhortations, — rather  are  they  the 
choicest  possible  truths,  the  union  of  the  lib- 
eral and  the  deeply  spiritual  spirit,  the  deep- 
est and  sanest  counsels,  living  inspirations  and 
impulses  of  power,  seed-truths  which  must 
fructify  once  planted  in  the  soil  of  the  heart. 
Miss  Sedgwick's  books  are  studies  in  ethics. 
Take  Bryant's  summing  up  of  her  character : 
"  an  unerring  sense  of  rectitude,  a  love  of  truth, 
a  ready  sympathy,  an  active  and  cheerful  bene- 
ficence, winning  and  gracious  manners,"  and 
add  anything  if  you  can.  He  knew  her  ;  and 
tell  me  if  a  character  such  as  that  would  not 
be  sane  and  deep  in  its  ethical  teaching. 
Her  books  are  not  "goody-goody,"  yet  she 
never  wrote  one  without  a  purpose.  She  por- 
trayed sin  but  always  to  make  one  loathe  it ; 
never,  as  so  many  of  our  present-day  novelists 
do,  to  make  it  attractive.  To  give  to  prurient 
scenes  realism  in  the  name  of  art,  to  array 
moral  rot  in  a  shining  verbal  vesture  and  so 
degrade  literary  workmanship,  as  do  some 
whose  books  make  our  libraries  a  doubtful 
blessing,  was  far,  very  far  from  her.  On  the 
contrary,  to  preach  and  rant  and  exhort  and 
nag,  she  was  equally  far  from.  She  taught 
by  examples  not  maxims.  Daniel  Prime  in 
Tales  and  Sketches,  a  typical  avaricious  fiend, 


132  Lenox 

whose  palm  so  itches  for  gold  that  he  slays  his 
own  daughter,  in  whose  favor  the  will  of  her 
grandfather  was  drawn,  and  by  the  murder  of 
whom,  being  a  minor,  the  father  hoped  to  get  her 
fortune,  is  a  sermon  in  himself  without  a  moral 
being  drawn.  Dame  Wilson  in  A  New  Eng- 
land Tale,  a  cruel,  grasping,  selfish,  and  un- 
lovely creature  of  most  faultless  orthodoxy, 
tells  in  clarion  tones  though  altogether  by 
inference  the  perfectly  sterile  living  which  may 
go  with  mere  intellectual  acceptance  of  a 
creed.  Miss  Sedgwick  was  versed  in  the  the- 
ology of  the  day,  and  the  vigorous  raps  she 
gives  it  are  severe,  and  ingenious,  and  bitter. 
It  is  no  wonder,  as  her  brother  wrote  her,  "  the 
Calvinists  are  miffed"-— but  that  was  her  mis- 
sion to  get  people  to  live  right.  It  was  life, 
not  belief,  she  was  after ;  and  she  valorously, 
fearlessly  went  at  it.  She  was  radical,  but 
constructive  ;  liberal  but  spiritual ;  indepen- 
dent, but  modest  and  sweet ;  religious,  but  no 
canting  fanatic  with  a  hobby  ;  literary,  but  not 
a  juggler  with  words,  nor  would  she  degrade 
her  art  by  a  flesh-tinted  realism  ;  ethical,  but 
not  hortatory  ;  and  truthful,  but  not  dogmatic. 
As  Horace  Mann  once  said  of  Miss  Sedgwick : 
"  She  is,  indeed,  a  noble  woman.  Humanity 
exhales  from  her  whole  being.  Her  benevo- 


Catherine  Maria  Sedgvvick        133 

lence,  conscientiousness,  and  reverence  express 
themselves  in  all  her  novels."  It  is  impossible 
to  fix  her  exact  place  in  the  literature  of 
America.  She  was  a  pioneer  in  American 
letters.  She  made  American  books  respected 
abroad.  She  was  perfectly  fearless,  as  is  shown 
by  using  the  novel  to  convey  truth,  and  by  her 
sharp  arraignment  of  New  England  theology. 
She  taught  high  and  sane  ethics.  She  was  a 
keen  observer  and  the  manners  and  life  of  her 
age  are  there  photographed  on  her  page.  She 
loved  Berkshire  and  many  are  the  allusions  to 
it  in  her  works.  She  had  intimate  friends 
among  the  great  everywhere.  She  possessed 
a  beautiful  character.  She  wrought  diligently 
and  well,  producing  many  books.  She  is  sec- 
ond only  to  Mrs.  Stowe  among  American 
women  of  letters. 

I  will  close  with  just  one  paragraph  from 
A  New  England  Tale,  her  first  and  to  me  her 
best  book.  It  is  a  passage  which  more  than 
any  other  shows  what  she  was  after ;  her  mis- 
sion to  get  people  to  see  what  was  the  real 
heart  of  religion,  a  life  of  obedience,  of  service, 
and  sacrifice,  and  sympathy,  and  courtesy,  and 
not  psalm-singing,  church-going,  prayers,  and 
Bible-reading ;  love,  righteousness,  truth,  not 
mere  piety  and  creed. 


134  Lenox 

Dame  Wilson  had  been  all  her  long  life  a 
strict  orthodox  believer,  but  had  never  done 
any  one  a  kindness  ;  was  the  very  innermost 
soul  of  hard-hearted,  close-fisted,  harsh-tongued 
repulsiveness,  though  outwardly  respectable. 
Her  ward  and  niece,  Jane  Elton,  was  her  pet 
victim ;  and  Mr.  Lloyd  who  loved  Jane  was  a 
Quaker,  and  deeply  in  sympathy  with  Jane's 
wrongs  from  this  "  religious  "  woman,  who  had 
family  prayers,  went  to  church,  and  believed 
all  the  Calvinistic  dogmas,  but  was  selfish  and 
cruel  and  unfeeling,  with  harsh  judgments,  a 
tight  purse,  and  a  heart  of  stone.  And  now 
she  was  dead,  and  the  funeral  had  taken  place, 
and  Jane  and  Mr.  Lloyd  are  talking  over  her 
life. 

'  Then  you  believe,'  replied  Jane,  '  that  my  aunt  de- 
ceived herself  by  her  clamorous  profession  ? ' 

'  Undoubtedly,'  said  Mr.  Lloyd.  '  Ought  we  wonder 
that  she  deceived  herself  since  we  have  heard  in  her 
funeral  sermon  her  experiences  detailed  as  the  triumphs 
of  a  saint  ;  her  attendance  upon  ordinances  com- 
mended as  if  they  were  the  end  and  not  the  means  of 
the  religious  life  ;  since  we  (who  cannot  remember  a 
single  gracious  act  of  humility  in  her  whole  life)  have 
been  told  as  a  proof  of  her  gracious  state  that  the  last 
rational  words  she  pronounced  were  that  she  was  of  sin- 
ners the  chief.'  .  .  .  '  Professions  and  declarations 
have  crept  in  among  the  Protestants  to  take  the  place  of  the 


Catherine  Maria  Sedgwick        135 

mortifications  and  penances  of  the  ancient  church;  so  prone 
are  men  to  find  some  easier  way  to  heaven  than  the  toilsome 
path  of  obedience'  " 

Is  there  not  need  of  Miss  Sedgwick's  mes- 
sage to-day  ? 


IV 


WITH  HAWTHORNE  IN  LENOX 

THE  advent  of  General  Zachary  Taylor  to 
the  Presidency,  in  1849,  caused  one 
Nathaniel  Hawthorne,  Democrat,  to  be  re- 
moved from  his  office  in  the  Salem  custom- 
house. The  Whigs  had  professed,  with  the 
usual  hollowness  of  party  platforms,  to  be 
opposed  to  the  doctrine  "  To  the  victors  belong 
the  spoils,"  but  their  wolfish  hunger  by  long 
abstention  could  hardly  conceal  itself  'neath 
the  fleecy  clothing  of  their  political  shibbo- 
leths. Hawthorne  received  word,  within  three 
months  after  the  coming  into  power  of  the 
new  reVime.  that  he  was  turned  out  of  office, 

o 

and  the  axes  of  Taylor's  headsmen  chopped 
merrily,  outrivalling  the  busy  work  of  Jack- 
son's spoliators,  twenty  years  before. 

The    Salem    custom-house   officer    took  his 
dismissal    philosophically,   and  the  good  wife 

136 


With  Hawthorne  in  Lenox        137 

at  home  said  to  him  bravely  :  "  Now  you  will 
have  time  to  write  your  book."  The  next 
spring  that  book  appeared, —  The  Scarlet 
Letter,  written  within  the  six  months  which 
followed  his  dismissal,  with  nothing  to  live 
upon  but  the  savings  which  his  wife  had 
managed  to  lay  up  out  of  his  meagre  salary. 
It  was  the  merest  chance  that  prevented  that 
book  from  being  written  in  Lenox,  for  just 
prior  to  his  removal  from  office,  the  Berkshire 
capital  is  talked  about  as  a  place  to  spend  the 
summer,  and  after  the  dismissal,  the  Haw- 
thornes  regret  they  had  not  "  taken  the  Lenox 
cottage."  Without  office,  it  was  all  the  more 

o 

the  purpose  of  Hawthorne  to  get  away  into 
the  Berkshires,  where  he  could  write  his 
book.  August  8th,  he  writes  his  brother-in-law, 
Horace  Mann: 

"  My  surveyorship  is  lost  and  I  have  no  expecta- 
tion, nor  any  desire,  of  regaining  it.  ...  I  mean, 
as  soon  as  possible;  —  that  is  to  say,  as  soon  as  I 
can  find  a  cheap,  pleasant  and  healthy  residence, — 
to  remove  into  the  country  and  bid  farewell  forever 
to  this  abominable  city  "  ; 

and  as  early  as  September  2d,  Mrs.  Haw- 
thorne writes  her  mother,  "  the  prospect  of 
mountainous  air  already  vivifies  the  blood." 
What  this  means  is  explained  in  a  letter  she 


Lenox 


herself  receives  September  10,  1849,  from  a 
friend  who  says  :  "  I  am  glad  you  are  going  to 
Lenox  because  it  is  such  a  beautiful  place  and 
you  .have  so  many  friends  there."  It  was 
here,  then,  where  Hawthorne  was  to  have 
written  the  famous  romance  which  caused  his 
genius  to  be  universally  recognized.  The 
reason  why  he  deferred  his  coming  to  Berk- 
shire for  six  months,  and  so  caused  his  first 
great  novel  to  see  the  light  in  Salem  instead, 
is  not  given.  His  own  mother's  illness  and 
death  that  summer  broke  up  his  plans  for  an 
early  getting  away,  and  the  fall  of  the  year 
seems  inopportune  to  go  into  the  country; 
particularly  into  the  Berkshires. 

With  the  early  spring  of  the  following  year, 
1850,  the  book  is  published;  and  in  May 
Hawthorne,  worn  out  with  the  experiences 
of  the  twelvemonth,  —  discharge  from  office, 
and  the  consequent  worry  as  to  the  support 
of  his  family  on  the  haphazard  means  at  his 
command,  the  death  of  his  mother,  and  the 
languor  of  body  and  mind  due  to  the  labor 
of  creating  his  first  romance,  —  repairs  to 
Lenox,  the  pure  air  of  whose  hills  he  inhales 
at  the  same  time  as  there  wafts  toward  him 
the  fragrant  incense  of  praise  from  all  parts 
of  the  world.  What  a  contrast  this  affords  ! 


With  Hawthorne  in  Lenox        139 

from  the  "abominable  city"  with  its  hated 
wharves  and  dingy  warehouses,  to  the  heights 
of  Lenox  with  the  most  entrancing  of  land- 
scapes to  look  out  upon  !  from  being  as  he 
styled  himself  "  the  obscurest  man  in  American 
letters,"  although  he  had  published  four  years 
before  The  Mosses  from  an  old  Manse  ( 1 846) 
and  nine  years  before  that  Twice-Told  Tales 
(1837),  to  the  pinnacle  of  fame,  and  com- 
parisons between  himself  and  Shakespeare ! 
from  the  disappointment  and  anxiety  due  to 
removal  from  office,  to  the  elation  and  security 
of  an  assured  literary  career !  from  a  life  of 
daily  drudgery  with  weights  and  measures,  to 
the  vocation  of  his  life — to  write  ; — a  prisoner 
dragging  his  chain  and  ball  transformed  into 
a  freeman,  whose  name  in  tones  of  worship- 
ful admiration  and  respect  was  upon  every 
tongue !  Let  us  bless  the  axe  of  the  Whig 
headsman  after  all,  and  love  it  for  the  gory 
stains  it  bears  of  a  certain  custom-house 
officer's  scalp !  The  kick  became  a  boost. 
In  the  light  of  what  happened,  therefore, 
it  is  a  pleasure  to  read  Mrs.  Hawthorne's 
words,  on  the  very  day  that  Hawthorne  was 
deposed  from  office  (June  8,  1849)  : 

"  Mr.  Hawthorne  never  liked  the  office  at  all  and  is 
rather  relieved  than  otherwise  that   it  is  taken   out   of 


140  Lenox 

his  hands,  and  has  an  inward  confidence  that  some- 
thing better  and  more  suitable  for  him  will  turn  up. 
As  for  me,  you  know  I  am  composed  of  Faith  and 
Hope,  and  while  I  have  my  husband  and  children  I 
feel  as  if  Montezuma's  diamonds  and  emeralds  were 
spiritually  in  my  possession." 

Hawthorne,  then,  came  to  Lenox  in  the 
first  flush  of  the  dawn  of  his  literary  reputa- 
tion, May,  1850,  almost  forty-six  years  of  age. 
He  was  twenty-five  years  out  of  Bowdoin,  had 
written  a  good  deal  of  the  type  of  the  maga- 
zine article,  and  published  in  addition  to  his 
great  romance  two  books  of  short  stories, 
and  at  thirty-eight  years,  rather  late  in  life, 
had  married  Miss  Sophie  Peabody,  an  invalid 
whom  he  loved  enough  to  ask  only  the  privi- 
lege of  ministering  to,  as  Browning  to  Eliza- 
beth Barrett,  but  to  whom  as  not  to  Mrs. 
Browning  came  health  in  the  marriage  re- 
lation. It  was  with  wife  and  two  children 
that  Hawthorne  came  to  the  Berkshires,  and 
it  was  here  in  the  little  house  they  occupied 
that  a  third  child,  Rose,  came  to  bless  and 
grace  the  home  circle.  Lenox  was  at  that  time 
the  shire-town  and  the  centre  as  well  of  great 
literary  prestige.  Miss  Catherine  Sedgwick 
was  nearing  the  end  of  her  literary  labors  and 
her  creative  energy  was  almost  a  spent  force, 


With  Hawthorne  in  Lenox        141 

and  Mrs.  Fanny  Kemble-Butler  was  still  in 
her  heyday  of  vigor  ;  both  women  residents  of 
Lenox,  and  attracting  here  wits  and  statesmen, 
authors  and  divines  to  their  brilliant  society 
and  the  hilltop  breezes  and  landscapes.  In 
Stockbridge  were  staying  temporarily  such 
men  as  Lowell,  Whipple,  and  G.  P  R.  James, 
while  in  Pittsfield  lived  Dr.  Holmes  and 
Herman  Melville.  At  or  about  this  time 
the  memories  of  the  visits  of  Channing,  Miss 
Martineau,  Mrs.  Jameson,  Curtis,  Longfellow, 
Sumner,  and  Miss  Frederika  Bremer  were 
fresh  in  the  minds  of  all.  Indeed,  Berkshire 
has  not  inaptly  been  called  the  "  lake-country  " 
of  America  because  its  cluster  of  literary 
brilliants  was  set  in  the  midst  of  great  pic- 
turesque beauty. 

But  we  must  remember  that  Hawthorne 
in  coming  to  Berkshire  left  behind  him  com- 
panionships with  men  of  letters  who  paled 
to  a  degree  the  brilliancy  of  his  newer  fellow- 
craftsmen.  His  Concord  days  were  not  to 
be  reproduced  :  days  when  he  had  the  rarest 
intimacy  with  the  choice  spirits  and  minds 
of  the  greatest  in  American  letters, —  tramping 
with  Emerson,  dining  again  and  again  with 
Longfellow,  his  classmate,  at  Parker's  or  the 
Tremont,  boating  with  Ellery  Channing  up 


142  Lenox 

and  down  the  river  that  flowed  through  the 
old  Concord  battle-field,  entertaining  Thoreau 
at  the  Old  Manse,  strolling  with  Lowell  in 
familiar  chat  and  giving  him  advice  and  en- 
couragement as  his  elder  by  fifteen  years, 
and  keyed  up  to  the  highest  intellectual  ten- 
sion by  the  society  of  the  brilliant  Margaret 
Fuller  Ossoli ;  for  these  were  the  creators  and 
prophets  who  discovered  Hawthorne's  genius 
long,  long  before  the  publication  of  his  first 
romance.  Hawthorne  came  to  Lenox  obscure 
in  a  way,  only  just  beginning  to  be  known, 
it  is  true ,  but  it  seems  to  me  a  somewhat 
colossal  joke  to  claim  that  Herman  Melville, 
by  his  notice  of  The  Scarlet  Letter  in  the  col- 
umns of  a  literary  journal,  "  discovered  "  him  ! 
It  was  natural  that  Hawthorne,  who  wrote 
of  his  days  with  Emerson  at  Concord,  "  It 
was  impossible  to  dwell  in  his  vicinity  without 
inhaling  more  or  less  the  mountain  atmosphere 
of  his  lofty  thought,"  should  write  to  Long- 
fellow after  a  year  at  Lenox:  "  Here  I  feel 
remote  and  quite  beyond  companionship." 
And  not  only  had  the  great  of  America's  best 
minds  recognized  Hawthorne's  genius  and 
taken  him  into  their  innermost  fellowship 
long  before  The  Scarlet  Letter,  and  long 
before  any  such  person  as  Melville  was  known, 


With  Hawthorne  in  Lenox       143 

but  across  the  water  his  power  was  felt. 
"  Dickens,"  says  Forster,  "  put  into  my  hands 
Mosses  from  an  Old  Manse,  with  injunctions 
to  read  it"  ;  and  Miss  Marian  Evans  confesses 
about  this  time :  "  Hawthorne  is  a  grand  fa- 
vorite of  mine." 

The  light  of  an  author's  success  reveals 
usually  his  earlier  works,  which  before  that 
had  failed  to  make  themselves  known.  The 
Mosses  are  as  beautiful  as  anything  Hawthorne 
ever  wrote,  and  the  "  Old  Manse "  seems  to 
have  walked  out  of  a  picture-frame  so  real  is  its 
quiet,  classic  beauty,  with  the  historic  river 
and  battle-field  hard  by.  Yet  not  until  Hester 
and  Dimmesdale  became  living  realities  on  the 
canvas  of  human  thought  did  the  world  see 
the  creative  energy  of  a  new  artist  and  turn  to 
look  at  the  character  of  his  earlier  productions. 

It  is  here,  then,  in  Lenox  that  we  find  Haw- 
thorne in  the  spring  of  1850,  resting  after  the 
mighty  creation  which  had  placed  forever,  in 
the  galaxy  of  letters,  a  new  star.  It  was  a 
tiny  house,  that  "  little  red  house "  he  occu- 
pied, set  upon  the  hillside  and  overlooking  a 
bit  of  landscape  whose  charm,  whose  lights 
and  shadows,  and  whose  tints  gave  to  the  lake 
and  mountains  beyond  a  meaning  and  an  in- 
spiration which  were  constant  sources  of  bless- 


H4  Lenox 

ing,  restf ulness,  and  invigoration.  Indeed,  the 
fascination  of  the  scenery  was  so  alluring  that 
he  said,  "  I  cannot  write  in  the  presence  of  that 
view."  On  all  these  points  about  us  the  eye 
of  Hawthorne  rested  in  mute  and  lavish  ad- 
miration, though  it  was  a  view  of  which  he 
tired  to  some  extent,  as  he  wearied  of  the 
climate  so  trying  in  mountainous  altitudes. 
Dr.  Holmes  rides  down  from  Pittsfieldto  visit 
the  Hawthornes,  the  second  year  of  their  stay, 
and  Hawthorne  insists  upon  holding  Dr. 
Holmes's  horse  while  its  rider  dismounts  to 
step  inside  to  get  the  view  through  the  bou- 
doir-window On  coming  out  the  genial  doc- 
tor said,  "  Is  there  another  man  in  all  America 
who  ever  had  so  great  an  honor  as  to  have 
the  author  of  The  Scarlet  Letter  hold  his 
horse?"  Let  us  get  this  view  in  Hawthorne's 
own  language: 

"  The  house  stands  on  a  gently  sloping  eminence,  a 
short  distance  away  in  the  lap  of  the  valley  a  beautiful 
lake,  reflecting  a  perfect  image  of  its  own  wooded  banks, 
and  of  the  summits  of  the  more  distant  hills,  as  it 
gleamed  in  glassy  tranquillity  without  the  trace  of  a 
winged  breeze  on  any  part  of  its  bosom.  There  is  a 
glen  between  this  house  and  the  lake,  through  which 
winds  a  little  brook  with  pools  and  tiny  waterfalls  over 
the  great  roots  of  trees.  The  glen  is  deep  and  narrow 
and  filled  with  trees,  so  that  it  is  all  a  dense  shadow  of 


With  Hawthorne  in  Lenox        145 

obscurity.  Beyond  the  lake  is  Monument  Mountain 
looking  like  a  headless  sphinx  wrapped  in  a  Persian 
shawl,  when  clad  in  the  rich  and  diversified  autumnal 
foliage  of  its  woods;  and  beyond  Monument  the  dome 
of  Taconic  whose  round  head  is  more  distinct  than  ever 
in  winter  when  its  snow-patches  are  visible  but  which 
generally  is  a  dark  blue  unvaried  mountain-top.  There 
are  many  nearer  hills  which  border  the  valley  and  all 
this  intervening  hill-country  is  rugged.  The  sunsets  of 
winter  are  incomparably  splendid,  and  when  the  ground 
is  covered  with  snow  no  brilliancy  of  tint  expressible  by 
words  can  come  within  an  infinite  distance  of  the  effect. 
Our  southern  view  at  that  time,  with  the  clouds  and  at- 
mospherical hues,  can  neither  be  described,  nor  imagined, 
and  the  various  distances  of  the  hills  which  lie  between 
us  and  the  remote  dome  of  Taconic  are  brought  out 
with  accuracy.  And  yet  the  face  of  nature  can  never 
look  more  beautiful  than  in  May  when  Monument  and 
its  brethren  are  green;  and  the  lightness  of  the  tint 
takes  away  something  from  their  massiveness  and  pon- 
derosity, and  they  respond  with  livelier  effect  to  the 
shine  and  shade  of  the  sky.  Each  tree  then  stands  out 
in  its  own  individuality  of  hue." 

It  must  be  added,  in  the  interest  of  histori- 
cal veracity,  that  there  is  a  passage  in  the  In- 
troduction to  Tanglewood  Tales,  written  within 
two  years  after  the  Hawthornes  left  Lenox, 
showing  that  the  novelist  grew  rather  a-weary 
with  the  sameness  of  the  entrancing  landscape 
just  described.  Hawthorne  is  back  now  ( 1 853) 
in  Concord,  and  writes: 


Lenox 


"  It  was  idle  to  imagine  that  an  airy  guest  from  Monu- 
ment Mountain,  Bald-Summit,  and  old  Greylock,  shaggy 
with  primeval  forests,  could  see  anything  to  admire  in 
my  broad  meadows  and  gentle  eminences.  Yet  to  me 
there  is  a  peculiar  quiet  charm  about  them.  They  are 
better  than  mountains,  because  they  do  not  stamp  and 
stereotype  themselves  into  the  brain,  and  thus  grow 
wearisome  with  the  same  strong  impression,  repeated 
day  after  day.  A  few  summer  weeks  among  mountains, 
a  lifetime  among  green  meadows  and  placid  slopes,  with 
outlines  forever  new  because  continually  fading  out  of 
the  memory,  —  such  would  be  my  sober  choice." 

Beautiful  as  was  the  exterior  view  greeting 
the  occupants  of  "  Tanglewood,"  Mrs.  Haw- 
thorne describes  the  interior  in  a  way  which 
shows  that  the  inner  beauty  of  the  "  little  red 
house  "  was  in  keeping  with  the  outer  charm, 
with  engravings,  rugs,  ottomans,  quaint  old 
furniture,  and  a  rare  delicacy  of  taste  in  all 
the  simple  appointments.  Soon  the  household 
economy  was  in  smooth  running  order,  after 
the  break-up  at  Salem,  and  the  family  settle 
down  to  the  enjoyment  of  their  new  surround- 
ings before  other  literary  work  is  begun.  Four 
months  pass  this  way,  and  in  the  end  of  August 
Hawthorne  begins  to  write  his  next  great  ro- 
mance, The  House  of  the  Seven  Gables,  that  grim 
treatise  on  the  Second  Commandment,  or  the 
children's  suffering  for  the  father's  sins.  The 


With  Hawthorne  in  Lenox       147 

life  in  "  Tanglewood"  is  now  a  methodical  af- 
fair :  the  literary  creator  busy  mornings  with 
his  Maules  and  Pyncheons,  with  Hepzibah  and 
Clifford,  their  mimic  experiences  the  shadows 
of  great  realities ;  the  daily  walk  to  the  post- 
office  in  Lenox,  the  walk  with  the  children  to 
a  farmhouse  half  a  mile  distant  for  milk  along 
a  road  the  gentle  father  styled  to  their  ears 
"the  milky  way,"  the  play-hour  with  Una  and 
Julian,  who  averred  there  never  was  "such  a 
playmate"  as  their  father,  and  the  evening 
readings  with  and  to  the  good  wife  who  was 
raptly  devoted  to  the  brilliant  man  who  loved 
her  with  a  perfect  love,  to  which  she  responded 
as  the  imaged  sky  in  the  lake's  glassy  surface 
to  the  blue  vault  above,  each  perfectly  match- 
ing the  other. 

Hawthorne  in  the  Mosses  had  said  during 
the  first  years  of  their  married  life  in  the 
beautiful  Concord  days,  "  Here  I  recline  upon 
the  unwithered  grass  and  whisper  to  myself 
1  O  perfect  day  !  O  beautiful  world !  O  benefi- 
cent God  ! ' "  and  from  Lenox  he  writes  Long- 
fellow: "  I  am  as  happy  as  mortal  can  be."  It 
was  an  idyllic  life  :  scenery  that  entranced,  a 
growing  fame  filling  the  world,  a  home  where 
love  reigned ;  work  which  called  out  his  soul's 
best  strength,  and  an  abandon  to  sport  in  the 


Lenox 


play-hour  with  the  children,  flying  kites,  or 
"coasting,"  or  walking  on  the  "marble  pave- 
ment "  of  the  frozen  lake  in  the  season,  making 
a  palace  of  snow  with  ice-windows,  nutting  with 
them  and  climbing  into  the  tip-top  of  the 
trees,  lying  on  the  lake-shore  while  the  chil- 
dren covered  him  with  leaves,  —  a  perfect  com- 
panion whose  presence  was  enjoyed  by  the 
children  as  that  of  no  other,  and  who  told 
them  in  simple  phrase  classic  stories  as  they 
walked  by  his  side,  and  listened,  rapt  auditors. 
Both  agreed  that  he  had  the  sweetest  smile, 
that  "  tall,  broad-shouldered,  handsome  man 
with  the  low  voice  and  shy,  gentle  ways,"  as 
Whipple  has  described  him,  "  with  a  dash  of 
gray  in  his  hair,  and  a  grave  but  kindly  face, 
and  with  the  most  wonderful  eyes  in  the  world, 
searching  as  lightning  and  unfathomable  as 
night:  the  most  gentle,  genial,  and  humane  of 
men."  He  had  no  ear  for  music  and  declared 
that  he  could  not  distinguish  between  Hail 
Columbia  and  Yankee  Doodle,  but  Lowell  pro- 
nounced him  "  the  greatest  poet,  though  he 
wrote  in  prose,  that  America  has  given  to  the 
world."  Abnormally  shy  and  retiring  before 
strangers,  so  modest  that  it  is  said  he  once 
leaped  a  wall  in  Lenox  to  avoid  some  pedes- 
trians coming  up  the  road,  his  presence  was  the 


With  Hawthorne  in  Lenox        149 

life  of  the  home ;  and  yet  the  majority  of  peo- 
ple who  knew  Hawthorne  in  Lenox  fifty  years 
ago  set  down  his  quiet  modesty  for  morose- 
ness,  a  quality  which  I  believe  has  been  at- 
tributed to  him  more  from  the  sad  vein  that 
runs  through  all  his  books  than  from  the  fact 
that  he  was  melancholy,  or  morbid.  Standing 
on  Bald  Head  he  calls  himself  to  his  children 
in  The  Wonder  Book  the  "silent  man"  Yet 
'*  quiet,  sensitive,  and  shy "  as  he  was,  the 
whole  region  is  eloquent  with  his  presence, 
and  as  at  Cooperstown  one  inbreathes  the 
memory  of  the  first  writer  of  American  fiction, 
so  at  Lenox  the  presence  of  Hawthorne  is 
stamped  on  lake  and  dell,  on  peak  and  crag, 
on  highway  and  meadow,  forming  part  of  the 
charm  of  the  landscape  itself  as  we  reflect  that 
he  viewed  it  and  loved  it. 

The  Lenox  chapter  in  Hawthorne's  life  was, 
however,  one  of  busy  toil.  The  workman  was 
"shaping  at  the  forge  of  thought  "  his  mighty 
conceptions.  Let  it  be  remembered  that  when 
he  came  to  the  Berkshires  he  had  just  finished 
his  first  romance.  Four  months  of  rest  ensued, 
and  then  in  the  end  of  August  he  begins  The 
Hoiise  of  the  Seven  Gables,  which  was  finished 
January  26th,  1851.  The  first  proofs  came  in 
the  middle  of  February,  and  the  book  was  out 


150  Lenox 

in  March  in  response  to  large  advance  orders. 
In  the  estimate  of  its  author  it  was  a  better 
book,  in  some  respects,  than  his  earlier  and 
more  celebrated  novel ;  "  more  characteristic 
of  me,"  he  says,  "  and  more  natural  for  me 
to  write";  and  Lowell  writes  him:  "It  is  a 
great  triumph,  and  will  build  you  a  monu- 
ment." The  style  is  as  pellucid  as  the  waters 
of  the  lake  he  looked  out  upon  when  he  wrote 
it,  for  Hawthorne  was  a  consummate  master 
of  clear  diction  and  literary  art.  The  story  is 
in  the  line  of  that  "  anatomy  of  melancholy  " 
in  which  Hawthorne  revelled,  but  it  has  what 
Mrs.  Hawthorne  styled  "  flowers  of  Paradise 
scattered  all  over  its  dark  places." 

A  few  months  only  elapsed  between  The 
House  of  the  Seven  Gables  and  his  next  book,  A 
Wonder  Book  for  Boys  and  Girls,  begun  in 
June  and  finished  in  a  month  and  a  half. 
This  is  practically  a  retelling  of  the  classic 
stories  of  mythology  for  children  ;  and  the 
Eustace  Bright  who  relates  them,  a  college 
boy  home  on  a  vacation,  to  children  who  go 
by  the  names  of  Primrose,  Sweet  Fern.  Blue- 
eye,  Clover,  Cowslip,  and  so  on,  is  none  other 
than  Hawthorne  himself,  relating  talks  with 
his  own  children,  Una  and  Julian,  as  he  had 
played,  and  coasted,  and  tramped,  and  climbed 


With  Hawthorne  in  Lenox       151 

with  them  in  the  neighborhood  of  "  Tangle- 
wood."  This  is  the  Berkshire  book,  describing 
"  Tanglewood,"  Shadow  Brook,  and  Bald 
Head,  where  the  stories  are  told.  It  was  read 
in  manuscript  to  his  children,  and  their  rapt 
delight  was  as  satisfactory  to  its  author  as  his 
wife's  painful  interest  in  the  reading  from  manu- 
script of  The  House  of  the  Seven  Gables  had 
been,  for  she  sometimes  begged  him  to  stop  as 
she  could  hear  no  more.  The  Wonder  Book 
was  finished  July  I5th,  and  was  published  soon 
after.  Almost  as  soon  as  the  summer  was 
over,  Hawthorne  was  at  work  over  a  new  collec- 
tion of  "  Twice-Told  Tales  "  entitled  The  Snow 
Image  and  Other  Tales,  which  had  been  written, 
many  of  them,  in  earlier  days,  but  were  now 
brought  together  in  one  volume,  whose  "  pref- 
ace" bears  date  "  Lenox,  Nov.  i,  1851." 

This  was  the  last  literary  work  Hawthorne 
did  in  Lenox,  which  he  left  November  2ist, 
but  we  must  not  forget  the  Diary  which  he 
so  faithfully  kept  all  his  life  — "  seventeen 
quartos,"  Lowell  says,  almost  as  voluminous 
as  John  Quincy  Adams's  daily  chronicles. 
From  this  Diary  came  the  posthumous 
American  Notes,  where  the  daily  happenings 
at  "  Tanglewood  "  are  recorded.  And  we  must 
also  not  forget  that  The  Blithedale  Romance, 


i52  Lenox 

with  its  "  Brook  Farm "  reminiscences,  writ- 
ten the  winter  after  Hawthorne  left  Lenox, 
was  here  conceived,  and  to  a  great  extent 
shaped,  for  Hawthorne  only  could  write  when 
he  had  distinctly  conceived.  He  did  not  de- 
velop as  he  wrote,  but  conceived  and  then 
wrote ;  although  he  had  the  faculty  of,  and 
great  facility  in,  improvisation,  he  did  not 
so  write  his  great  works.  In  July,  just  after 
finishing  The  Wonder  Book,  he  writes  his 
friend  Pike  that  he  has  in  mind  another  ro- 
mance embodying  "  my  experiences  and  obser- 
vations at  Brook  Farm."  In  Dr.  Hale's  recent 
book,  James  Russell  Lowell  and  His  Friends, 
there  is  a  hint  of  the  laborious  scholarship 
down  at  the  bottom  of  Hawthorne's  romances 
in  a  reference  to  a  remark  of  Lowell,  who  was 
always  using  superlatives  to  describe  Haw- 
thorne's genius.  "  Hawthorne,"  he  said, 
"  proved  that  our  own  past  was  an  ample 
storehouse  for  the  brightest  works  of  imagina- 
tion or  fancy."  All  that  last  summer  Haw- 
thorne spent  in  Berkshire  he  was  reading  or 
thinking  along  the  line  of  the  coming  Blithe- 
dale  Romance. 

This,  then,  is  the  sum  of  the  literary  activ- 
ity of  Hawthorne  in  Lenox,  where  he  resided 
a  year  and  a  half  so  pleasantly,  and  all  the 


With  Hawthorne  in  Lenox        153 

more  delightfully  because  at  work, — "  happy," 
as  he  himself  said,  "  as  mortal  can  be."  And 
why  not,  pray  ? — when  Mr.  Fields  writes  him, 
"Your  books  are  printed  in  Paris,  as  much  as 
in  England  " ;  and  Browning  says,  "  Haw- 
thorne is  the  greatest  genius  who  has  appeared 
in  English  literature  for  many  years  "  ;  and 
when  the  choice  minds  of  Germany  were  al- 
ready buried  deep  and  absorbingly  in  his  pages, 
Amelie  Botta  writing  him  :  "  We  know  The 
House  of  the  Seven  Gables,  which  is  a  lesson  to 
family  pride.  You  write  as  if  you  wrote  for 
Germany."  These  testimonies  came  just  a 
few  weeks  after  leaving  Lenox,  but  they  have 
to  do  with  the  Lenox  work. 

Yet  Hawthorne  has  met  an  enemy  in  the 
Berkshire  climate  with  its  sudden  changes  and 
longs  to  get  away.  He  does  not  actually  bid 
farewell  to  Berkshire  until  late  November, 
1851,  but  there  are  hints  six  months  before  of 
the  coming  departure.  In  May  he  writes 
Longfellow :  "  My  soul  gets  troublous  with 
too  much  peace  and  rest.  ...  I  need  to 
smell  sea-breezes  and  dock  mud  and  to  tread 
pavements."  But  in  July  it  seems  as  if  his 
plans  to  leave  Lenox  might  be  indefinitely 
postponed. 

"  We  intend  to  take  Mrs.  Kemble's  house  in  October 


154  Lenox 

or  the  beginning  of  November,"  he  writes  his  friend 
Bridge,  July  22d.  "  We  shall  lose  a  beautiful  prospect 
and  gain  a  much  more  convenient  and  comfortable 
house.  ...  I  mean  to  buy  a  house  before  a  great 
while,  but  it  shall  not  be  in  Berkshire.  I  prefer  the  sea- 
coast." 

Two  days  later  he  writes  another  friend  : 

"I  do  not  feel  at  home  among  these  hills  and  should 
not  like  to  consider  myself  permanently  settled  here.  I 
am  continually  catching  cold  and  am  none  so  vigorous 
as  I  used  to  be  on  the  sea-coast.  The  same  is  the  case 
with  my  wife." 

Seven  days  later,  Hawthorne,  who  is  stay- 
ing with  Julian  alone  in  the  "  Red  Shanty,"  or 
"  La  Maison  Rouge,"  as  he  styles  it  inter- 
changeably, while  Mrs.  Hawthorne  is  away  for 
a  few  weeks  with  Una,  has  the  following  entry 
in  the  daily  journal  : 

"This  is  a  horrible,  horrible,  most  hor-ri-ble  climate, 
one  knows  not  for  ten  minutes  together,  whether  he  is 
too  cool  or  too  warm,  but  he  is  always  one  or  the  other, 
and  the  constant  result  is  a  miserable  disturbance  of  the 
system.  I  detest  it !  I  detest  it !!  I  detest  it !!!  I  hate 
Berkshire  with  my  whole  soul  and  would  joyfully  see  its 
mountains  laid  flat." 

A  few  weeks  later  Mrs.  Hawthorne  writes 
her  mother,  September  7th  : 

"  It  is  very  singular  how  much  more  we  are  in  the 
centre  of  society  in  Lenox  than  we  were  in  Salem,  and 


With  Hawthorne  in  Lenox       155 

all  literary  persons  seem  settling  around  us.     But  when 
they  get  established  here,  I  dare  say  we  shall  take  flight." 

The  next  month  the  plan  of  taking  the 
Kemble  place  was  given  up,  and  by  October 
nth,  the  plan  for  leaving  Berkshire  had  ma- 
tured, for  on  that  date  Hawthorne  writes 
Bridge  :  "  We  shall  leave  here,  with  much 
joy,  on  the  first  day  of  December."  And  in- 
deed, their  departure  was  a  little  sooner  than 
the  date  set,  for  on  November  21,  1851,  ap- 
pears this  entry  in  the  Diary  :  "  We  left 
Lenox  in  a  storm  of  snow  and  sleet."  Julian 
remembers  that  five  house  cats,  pets  of  the 
family,  followed  them  down  the  road  a  piece, 
as  they  rumbled  off  with  their  trunks  in  a 
farmer's  wagon.  It  was  a  dreary  leave-taking 
of  Berkshire  and  its  charming  scenic  beauty, 
blurred  in  the  November  storm  ;  but  the 
Lenox  residence  of  Nathaniel  Hawthorne  had 
given  to  the  region  some  of  its  most  cherished 
memories  and  traditions,  as  it  had  given  to 
him  some  of  his  grandest  inspirations. 

Lenox  preserved  the  memory  of  the  Haw- 
thorne visit  by  repeated  pilgrimages  out  to  the 
border  of  the  town  where  the  "  little  red  house  " 
stood,  and  many  were  the  strolls  and  drives 
hither  to  this  literary  shrine  during  those  days 
the  house  was  standing.  Its  owner,  who  is 


156  Lenox 

possessed  of  many  gentlemanly  and  scholarly 
qualities, — "a  horn  of  benefits,"  Mrs.  Haw- 
thorne called  him, — took  pleasure  in  keeping 
the  house  as  its  distinguished  occupant  left  it. 
Sad  was  the  day,  twelve  years  ago,  when  the 
house  went  up  in  smoke,  but  the  site  forever 
remains,  though  the  view  from  it  is  greatly 
marred  by  the  growth  of  trees.  An  effort  has 
been  made  to  mark  the  site  with  an  appropriate 
memorial ;  one  very  distinguished  gentleman 
in  the  field  of  letters  suggesting  to  me  an 
exedra,  a  sort  of  wayside  shrine  with  seat, 
where  one  may  vividly  call  up  the  memory  of 
the  great  novelist  in  the  presence  of  the  in- 
spiring view  he  loved.  The  street  leading 
out  to  this  site  has  already  been  renamed  in 
honor  of  Hawthorne.  The  village  library  has 
a  table  which  once  was  his,  though  the  one 
on  which  he  wrote  The  House  of  the  Seven 
Gables  is  in  the  Athenseum,  Pittsfield.  Various 
charred  relics  of  the  "  old  red  house  "  are  pre- 
served in  the  region  round  about. 

Few  other  material  reminders  of  the  pres- 
ence of  this  mighty  workman  are  left.  The 
village  retains  the  tradition  that  he  was  mo- 
rose, because  he  was  "  silent."  "  Speech,"  said 
Ellis,  "was  travail  to  Hawthorne";  and  with 
this  accords  Emerson's  testimony  :  "  It  was 


With  Hawthorne  in  Lenox       157 

easy  to  talk  to  Hawthorne,  only  he  said  so 
little  that  I  talked  too  much."  Mrs.  Brown- 
ing, who  met  him  at  Rome,  said  of  him  :  "  It  is 
not  his  way  to  converse."  It  is  easy  to  see, 
then,  how  the  impression  got  abroad  in  Lenox 
that  he  was  morose ;  and  this  impression  was 
strengthened  by  what  Longfellow  calls  "  the 
same  old  dull  pain  that  runs  through  all  his 
writings."  He  was  not  melancholy,  as  wife 
and  children  and  friends  attest,  as  passages  of 
sublime  optimism  everywhere  in  his  writings, 
a  continual  play  of  humor,  and  a  steadfast  ap- 
plication to  toil  prove.  He  diagnosed  sin  to 
heal,  not  to  expose.  He  made  sin  sinful  and 
repellent,  not  attractive.  His  books  were  all 
of  them  written  with  a  purpose,  and  therefore 
they  all  have  a  message.  The  Puritan  sur- 
vived under  his  graceful,  transparent  diction. 
He  was  "  gray  and  grand,"  says  Longfellow 
writing  of  him  in  1863,  "  but  there  was  some- 
thing very  pathetic  about  him  "  ;  and  Motley 
four  years  earlier  writes  :  "  Hawthorne  is  the 
most  bashful  man,  I  believe,  that  ever  lived, 
certainly  the  most  bashful  American  .  .  . 
but  he  is  a  very  sincere,  unsophisticated,  kind 
person  and  looks  the  man  of  genius  he  un- 
doubtedly is."  It  is  so  easy  to  mistake  silence 
for  moodiness,  bashfulness  for  sullenness,  a 


158  Lenox 

disposition  to  avoid  men  for  an  inclination  to 
dislike  them,  quiet  for  morbidness,  that  it 
is  small  wonder  those  outside  the  charmed 
circle  of  friendship  misjudged  him. 

We  are  not  concerned  here  with  the  subse- 
quent story  of  Hawthorne's  career.  Books 
followed  and  a  Liverpool  consulate  with  long 
residence  abroad  and  a  return  to  America  in 
the  most  critical  of  the  ante-bellum  days,  just 
before  the  outbreak  of  the  Civil  War,  when 
he  wrote  one  of  his  greatest  romances,  The 
Marble  Faun.  A  Democrat,  and  the  intimate 
friend  of  Franklin  Pierce,  "  the  Northern 
man  with  Southern  sentiments,"  Hawthorne 
met  rebuff  and  stigma  in  his  old  haunts. 
Whittier  and  the  whole  abolitionist  school  had 
little  patience  with  slavery  apologists  and  al- 
lowed only  short  shrift  to  those  who  went  not 
to  their  lengths.  But  a  passage  in  Haw- 
thorne's Diary,  "  I  am  an  abolitionist  in  feel- 
ings, if  not  in  principle,"  goes  far  to  redeem 
him  in  the  minds  of  those  who  felt  the  passion 
of  the  slavery  reform  like  a  consuming  fire 
within  their  breasts.  He  died  during  the  pro- 
gress of  the  war  and  towards  its  close,  broken- 
hearted because  brothers  were  in  conflict.  He 
was  laid  to  rest  under  the  pines  in  his  loved 
Concord,  on  a  matchless  day  in  late  May,  the 


With  Hawthorne  in  Lenox        159 

orchards  and  meadows  clad  in  bloom  and  filled 
with  song, — 

"  Though  all  its  splendor  could  not  chase  away 
The  omnipresent  pain," — 

and  his  burial  was  attended  by  his  devoted 
friends,  Longfellow,  Emerson,  Agassiz,  Low- 
ell, Holmes,  Whipple,  and  Pierce,  who  mourned 
sincerely,  not  the  quenching  of  his  productive 
genius  only,  but  the  going  away  of  a  congenial 
spirit,  who  had  graced  and  refined  and  blessed 
and  hallowed  their  fellowship. 

"  There  in  seclusion  and  remote  from  men 

The  wizard  hand  lies  cold 
Which  at  its  topmost  speed  let  fall  the  pen 
And  left  the  tale  half  told." 

It  is  not  for  me  here  to  attempt  an  estimate 
of  Hawthorne  as  a  writer.  Emerson  says  :  "  I 
never  read  his  books  with  pleasure ;  they  are 
too  young "  ;  and  he  frankly  confessed  he 
never  could  read  one  through.  Moreover  he 
advised  the  young  not  to  read  Hawthorne. 
Lowell,  on  the  contrary,  pronounces  Haw- 
thorne "  the  rarest  creative  imagination  of  the 
century,  the  rarest  in  some  ideal  respects  since 
Shakespeare  ;  the  most  original  mind  Amer- 
ica has  o-iven  to  the  world."  Estimates  will 

o 

run    between   these    extremes,    but,    unless    I 


160  Lenox 

mistake,  the  world  agrees  with  Lowell,  rather 
than  with  Emerson.  Anyway,  proud  was  the 
day  for  Berkshire  which  added  the  name  of 
Nathaniel  Hawthorne  to  the  roll  of  those  who 
have  caused  the  lustre  of  their  achievements 
to  shine  resplendently  upon  the  county  they 
honored,  and  proud  will  be  the  day  when  the 
hallowed  site  of  the  red  house  by  the  lake 
where  Hawthorne  wrought  some  of  his  might- 
iest creations  shall  be  appropriately  marked 
with  some  memorial  to  this  master-workman  : 
Nathaniel  Hawthorne,  who,  though  he  wrote 
not  in  verse,  possessed  the  soul  of  the  poetic 
spirit,  insight,  and  grace,  and,  though  he  was 
a  stranger  to  the  laws  of  musical  numbers, 
sang  his  stern  messages  into  the  ear  of  the 
world  with  infinitely  melodious  rhythm  and 
cadence. 


V 

MODERN   LENOX 

NATURE'S  inspiring  canvas  in  a  frame  of 
Art, —  this  is  the  Lenox  of  to-day.  More 
than  half  of  the  area  of  the  township  has 
passed  into  the  possession  of  those  who,  with 
large  means,  have  touched  the  olden  picture 
of  scenic  charm  only  to  adorn  it.  An  urban 
class  seeking  rural  retreats  has  added  to  the 
charm  of  the  region  by  the  creation  of  beauti- 
ful estates,  and  one  is  diverted  for  the  moment 
from  the  scenery  to  the  elegance  of  these  ex- 
tensive properties,  whose  villas  have  been  built, 
in  recent  years,  upon  an  increasing  scale  of 
magnificence.  The  village  itself  has  been 
transformed,  its  roads  improved,  trimmed,  and 
kept  free  from  dust,  thus  imparting  a  park-like 
appearance  to  the  town ;  and  often  during 
the  "  season,"  when  handsome  equipages  are 
rolling  along  on  every  highway  and  the  ex- 
ploring tourist  on  foot  or  wheel  is  abroad  in 

11  161 


162  Lenox 

the  land  (for  the  town  is  now  on  the  beaten 
path  of  summer  travel),  one  hears  this  ques- 
tion asked:  "  What  is  the  effect  of  the  incom- 
ing of  wealth  upon  Lenox?" 

The  most  immediate  and  perceptible  effect 
of  all  this  change  in  outward  conditions  has 
been  a  complete  change  in  the  internal  life  of 
the  village.  The  removal  of  the  courts  in 
1869  took  out  of  Lenox  the  very  core  of  its 
culture,  and  this  was  followed  in  the  next 
twenty  years  by  such  a  rush  for  building  sites 
that  landholders  disposed  of  property  and  mi- 
grated. Farms  that  were  worth  $50  an  acre 
for  potatoes  sold  for  $1000  per  acre  for  build- 
ing purposes.  Ten  years  before  the  courts 
were  removed  the  village  property  of  Judge 
Pierpont  —  sometime  Minister  to  England - 
was  sold  for  $5600.  Another  village  prop- 
erty, hardly  more  than  a  stone's  throw  off, 
with  a  finer  view,  but  containing  only  two 
acres  and  a  third,  sold  scarcely  more  than  ten 
years  after  the  removal  of  the  courts  for 
$35,000  to  the  family  of  a  member  of  Presi- 
dent Arthur's  cabinet.  The  land  on  which 
the  present  Episcopal  church,  rectory,  and 
parish-house  now  stand  —  a  triangular  tongue 
of  about  half  an  acre  —  cost  the  society  $  1 9,000. 
This  scale  of  prices  was  established  propor- 


Modern  Lenox  163 

tionately  throughout  the  township  as  soon  as 
the  lightning  of  public  favor  struck  it.  Prices 
have  receded  somewhat  from  those  inflated 
values,  but  the  normal  value  of  real  estate  to- 
day is  still  very  high  and  will  be  kept  so. 

It  is,  therefore,  easy  to  see  that  the  Yankee 
saw  his  opportunity  and  left.  He  would  n't 
have  been  a  Yankee  if  he  had  not.  A  little 
of  the  old  New  England  stock  still  survives, 
but  it  is  a  remnant.  A  different  order  has 
come  about.  In  place  of  the  New  England 
yeomanry  have  come  the  summer  residents  and 
the  caretakers  of  the  great  estates.  The  whole 
personnel  in  the  public  places,  in  the  churches, 
has  entirely  changed.  The  character  and  na- 
tionality of  the  citizens  of  Lenox  differ  toto 
coslo  from  what  they  were  fifty  years  ago. 
Municipal  conditions  have  arisen  more  difficult 
to  cope  with,  and  the  literary  atmosphere  once 
breathed  in  this  old  student-town  has  dimin- 
ished. Another  generation  has  arisen  which 
knows  not  Miss  Sedgwick,  and  which  is  a 
stranger  to  the  intellectual  and  social  prestige 
of  the  ancient  Berkshire  capital. 

But  if  the  unmaking  of  the  old  town  has 
proceeded  with  the  making  of  the  new  resort, 
it  may  with  equal  justice  be  said  that  the 
losses  which  Lenox  has  suffered  have  not  been 


164  Lenox 

without  compensations.  Aside  from  the  pres- 
ence of  great  wealth  here,  as  a  source  of 
patronage  and  as  the  element  which  con- 
tributes the  most  heavily  to  meet  the  town's 
annual  budget  of  expenses,  and  aside  from  the 
many  inspirations  to  right  living  which  an  af- 
fluent class  "  rich  in  good  works  "  can  and 
does  present  to  those  who  are  less  favorably 
circumstanced,  Lenox  has  enjoyed  very  many 
benefactions  at  the  hands  of  those  who  have 
appropriated  these  heights  as  building  sites. 
Fifty  years  ago  Mrs.  Fanny  Kemble-Butler 
presented  to  the  town  the  clock  which,  though 
it  somewhat  outlived  its  usefulness  as  a  time- 
piece, graced  the  belfry  of  the  old  village 
church  until  recently.  It  has  now  been  re- 
placed by  another,  the  gift  of  Morris  K.  Jesup, 
Esq.  The  purchase  of  the  county  Court-house 
by  Mrs.  Adeline  E.  Schermerhorn,  in  1874,  in 
order  that  she  might  present  it  to  the  town 
for  a  library  building,  has  already  been  men- 
tioned. Later  a  public  watering-trough  of 
beautiful  design,  in  memory  of  Miss  Emma 
Stebbins,  was  given  to  the  town  by  Mrs.  C. 
C.  Tiffany  and  Miss  Wheeler,  and  later  still 
Professor  Thomas  Egleston  erected  to  the 
memory  of  General  Paterson  a  fine  shaft  on  the 
green  in  front  of  the  hotel.  Some  years  after 


Modern  Lenox  165 

the  gift  by  Mrs.  Schermerhorn,  her  children, 
Mrs.  R.  T.  Auchmuty  and  Mr.  F.  Augustus 
Schermerhorn,  completed  their  mother's  gen- 
erous and  useful  present  by  adding  to  the  li- 
brary building  what  is  known  as  the  "  Sedgwick 
Hall  Annex,"  a  most  attractive  assembly 
room  and  lecture  hall.  More  recently  Mr. 
John  E.  Parsons  has  given  to  the  town  a  fine 
granite  standard  for  a  cluster  of  electric  lamps. 
If  we  might  include  the  gifts  to  the  churches 
in  the  list  of  gifts  to  the  town,  it  would  be  dif- 
ficult to  stop  the  enumeration  of  gracious  and 
fragrant  alabaster-boxes  whose  sweet  perfume 
is  the  memory  of  saintly  lives.  Many  are 
these  "memorials":  the  font  and  tablets  in 
the  Congregational  church,  the  gift  of  David 
Egleston,  in  memory  of  his  mother ;  the  cam- 
panile tower  attached  to  the  Episcopal  church, 
the  gift  of  Mrs.  Auchmuty  and  Mr.  Schermer- 
horn ;  the  chancel  given  by  the  Kneeland 
family  as  a  memorial  to  a  member  of  their 
household  ;  the  choir  room,  the  gift  of  Mr. 
Charles  Lanier  in  memory  of  his  wife  ;  the 
sweet-toned  chimes  presented  by  George  H. 
Morgan,  Esq.,  as  a  memorial  to  his  wife,  and 
the  Trinity  Parish  House,  a  most  useful  and 
attractive  structure,  presented  to  the  Episco- 
pal church  by  John  E.  Parsons,  Esq.,  in 


1 66  Lenox 

memory  of  his  wife.  Mr.  Parsons  has,  also, 
given  to  this  church  for  its  work  in  another 
part  of  the  town,  a  handsome  property  with 
church  (St.  Helena  Chapel)  and  parish-house 
in  memory  of  his  daughter.  And,  last,  but 
by  no  means  least,  should  be  mentioned  the 
generous  donations  of  the  summer  residents, 
one  and  all,  to  the  support  of  the  Town 
Library,  which  contains  fourteen  thousand 
volumes,  and  which  has  greatly  expanded  its 
facilities  through  the  active  and  munificent 
interest  of  its  patrons  who  come  to  this  hill- 
country  at  the  annual  hegira. 

I  cannot  close  this  part  of  my  subject  with- 
out the  fear  that  I  have  omitted  the  mention 
of  some  deeds  from  this  list  of  sweet  minis- 
tries, and  so  I  will  erect  an  altar  "  To  the  Un- 
known Givers,"  whose  many  charities  have 
relieved  distress,  but  have  never  been  known 
by  the  general  public.  Lenox  receives  all 
these  public  donations  in  a  deeply  appreciative 
spirit.  It  can  no  more  do  for  itself  what  it 
once  could  in  the  way  of  artistic  adornment ; 
but  then  it  lacked  the  inclination;  now,  with  a 
valuation  of  over  three  millions  of  dollars,  it 
would  seem  as  if  it  ought  to  lack  neither 
the  inclination  nor  the  means.  Modern  Lenox 
should  be  the  most  beautiful  town  in  the 


CQ 


-3  - 


Modern  Lenox  167 

world,  with  its  superb  scenery  and  magnificent 
estates.  There  is  a  susceptibility  to  adorn- 
ment here  as  nowhere  else.  It  will  take  all 
the  polish  wealth  can  put  upon  it.  Its  views 
should  be  treated  artistically  by  cutting  away 
some  of  its  ornamental  shrubbery.  Its  public 
buildings  should  be  in  harmony  with  their  en- 
vironment, rich  and  substantial.  Municipal 
regulations  of  a  far-seeing  character  should  be 
adopted,  looking  to  the  preservation  of  all  this 
natural  beauty.  Gifts  to  the  town  should  be 
made  by  individual  donors,  following  the  ex- 
amples of  those  who  have  in  other  days 
marked  their  affection  for  the  place  by  public 
memorials. 

But  the  greatest  gift  to  a  town  is  the  public 
spirit  of  its  citizens,  and  there  have  been  some 
among  those  who  have  created  beautiful  estates 
here  who  have  given  themselves  to  the  town. 
"The  best  gift  thou  canst  give  to  me,"  said 
Emerson  "is  a  portion  of  thyself."  It  would 
be  invidious  to  specify  any  when  so  many  of 
the  Lenox  "cottagers"  have  taken  such  a 
deep  interest  in  the  town.  Some  men  cannot 
live  in  a  town  without  making  themselves  felt 
in  it  for  good.  Such  men  among  others  in 
Lenox  were  the  late  Colonel  R.  T.  Auchmuty 
and  Mr.  Richard  Goodman,  Sr.;  and  there  are 


1 68  Lenox 

many  among  the  living  whose  public  spirit  is 
a  precious  and  a  potent  testimony  of  friend- 
ship for  their  adopted  town,  vying  with  that 
of  those  who  are  "  to  the  manner  born." 

Modern  Lenox  traces  its  beginnings  as  a 
place  of  fine  estates  and  villas  far  back  into 
the  past.  The  magnificent  prospect  to  the 
south,  in  which  direction  the  town  slopes  down 
to  two  little  lakes,  with  mountains  rising  be- 
yond, could  not  fail  to  attract  those  who  de- 
sired to  erect  summer  residences.  It  may  be 
doubted  whether  the  physical  loveliness  of  the 
region  was  the  only  attraction,  or  whether  the 
charm  of  a  literary  town,  an  academic  centre 
for  the  country  lying  between  the  Hudson  and 
the  Connecticut,  did  not  lure  some.  As  the 
shire-town,  also,  with  courts,  a  regular  weekly 
newspaper,  and  a  perfected  system  of  stage 
routes,  all  of  which,  of  course,  led  through  the 
county  seat,  it  possessed  certain  facilities  not 
to  be  afforded  in  an  inaccessible  and  isolated 
spot,  where  the  scenery  might  have  been 
equally  as  fine.  We  have  seen  that  Mrs. 
Kemble's  first  visit  in  Lenox  was  in  1836,  and 
that  in  the  Berkshire  Coffee-House  (now 
Curtis  Hotel)  as  early  as  1838  the  summer 
boarder  was  en  evidence.  The  first  estate  to 
be  created  here  was  that  of  Mr.  Samuel  G. 


Modern  Lenox  169 

Ward,  in  1846,  afterwards  sold  to  Mr.  Bullard 
and  known  now  as  High  wood,  charmingly  lo- 
cated on  the  heights  above  the  northern 
shore  of  Lake  Mahkeenac  (Stockbridge  Bowl). 
Charles  Sumner,  who  spent  September  of  1844 
in  Berkshire,  recuperating  from  a  severe  ill- 
ness, passed  several  days  with  Mr.  Ward  in 
Lenox,  and  writes  his  friend,  Sam.  Howe 
(September  loth):  "  Ward  jolted  us  in  his 
wagon  to  view  the  farms,  one  of  which  he 

o 

covets."  I  take,  also,  this  quotation  from  a 
letter  of  Oliver  Wendell  Holmes  :  "  Pittsfield, 
August  1 7,  1 849.  Rode  my  little  horse  over  to 

Lenox  this  forenoon.     Mr. 's  place  is  one 

of  the  most  beautiful  spots  I  ever  saw  any- 
where. I  visitfed  it  some  years  ago  when  it 
was  building  and  it  appeared  to  me  perfect 
almost  to  a  miracle";  and  continuing  the  de- 
scription of  his  visit  at  Lenox,  Dr.  Holmes 
mentions  two  other  building  sites  which  had 
been  selected,  "  one  by  Mrs.  Butler,  '  the 
tragedy  queen.' "  Hawthorne,  six  months  later 
(in  the  spring  of  1850)  came  to  this  shire-town 
of  the  Berkshires,  in  the  first  glow  of  his  liter- 
ary splendor,  occasioned  by  the  creation  of 
his  masterpiece,  which  he  had  just  completed, 
and  his  work  here  for  a  year  and  a  half,  unre- 
mitting, productive  immortal,  drew  attention  to 


1 70  Lenox 

the  town.  Anyway,  in  the  next  five  years  the 
sales  of  real  estate  must  have  disclosed  to  the 
town  at  least  a  hint  of  its  changing  character. 

The  beginnings  of  certain  large  estates  which 
have  remained  practically  intact  until  the  pres- 
ent day  are  seen  to  emerge  from  that  period, 
half  a  century  ago ;  they  are  the  Bullard  and 
Tappan  places,  lying  on  the  ascent  from  the 
north  shore  of  Stockbridge  Bowl,  and  just  a 
stone's  throw  from  the  "  little  old  red  house  " 
where  Hawthorne  wrought ;  the  Schermerhorn 
and  Haggerty  estates  in  the  village,  the  latter 
now  owned  by  George  W.  Morgan,  Esq.,  of 
New  York  ;  the  Kemble  place,  known  as  "  The 
Perch,"  and  now  the  property  of  Mrs.  Wil- 
liam Thompson,  of  New  York ;  the  Aspinwall- 
Woolsey  estate,  now  passed  into  the  hands  of 
a  syndicate,  and  the  Beecher  farm,  now  a  mag- 
nificent estate,  for  many  years  the  property  of 
General  Rathbone,  but  at  present  belonging  to 
John  Sloane,  Esq.,  of  New  York  City.  The 
locations  of  these  estates  will  show  that  thus 
early  in  the  history  of  the  town  as  a  resort, 
the  beauty  of  the  township  as  a  whole  was 
recognized. 

Topographically  Lenox  is  a  sort  of  "saddle- 
back," with  the  villa  of  Charles  E.  Lanier, 
Esq.,  "  Allen  Winden,"  high  in  the  pommel, 


and  the  Congregational  church  at  the  other 
end  high  in  the  rear,  or  vice  versa,  whichever 
you  choose  to  call  it,  the  land  sloping  off  to 
the  east  and  west  from  these  eminences. 
From  either  side  of  "Allen  Winden,"  whose 
name  suggests  its  elevation,  the  land  descends, 
to  the  west  to  two  little  lakes,  one  of  which  is 
"  Stockbridge  Bowl,"  on  which  are  two  of  the 
estates  previously  named,  and  on  the  east  to 
another  little  body  of  water,  Laurel  Lake.  It 
was  on  this  latter  side  that  Mrs.  Kemble-But- 
ler  selected  her  building  site  in  1850,  looking 
down  upon  the  brightly  glowing  face  of  the 
mountain  mirror  as  it  caught  the  sun's  rays  in 
the  morning,  and  beyond  it  to  the  Tyringham 
Pass,  where  the  "  Shadow  Bridge,"  constructed 
by  Richard  Watson  Gilder's  poetic  vision, 
spans  the  dell  early  in  the  afternoon.  Fanny 
Kemble  also  looked  off  due  east  to  the 
"  Beecher  farm,"  on  rising  ground  a  half-mile 
distant,  purchased  by  the  Rev.  H.  W.  Beecher 
in  1853.  Retracing  our  steps  to  the  village, 
where  Mrs.  Adeline  E.  Schermerhorn  bought 
in  1853  and  built  in  1859,  we  Pass  °n  and 
through,  up  the  steep  hill  crowned  by  the  vil- 
lage church,  to  the  Woolsey  estate  immediately 
in  the  rear.  On  a  little  higher  ground  than 
that  on  which  the  church  stands  was  situated 


1 72  Lenox 

this  very  large,  thickly  wooded,  and  hand- 
some property,  acquired  by  Mr.  E.  J.  Woolsey 
and  Mr.  W.  H.  Aspinwall  at  nominal  prices 
from  those  who  sold  to  them  the  well-timbered 
heights  of  their  side-hill  farms.  It  commands 
a  prospect  to  the  south  that  beggars  descrip- 
tion :  the  town  beneath,  the  glistening  surface 
of  Stockbridge  Bowl  far  away  to  the  right, 
and  beyond,  rising  one  above  another  as  they 
recede  into  the  farthest  distance,  the  moun- 
tains, "  Rattlesnake,"  "  Monument,"  and  "  The 
Dome,"  the  last  2800  feet  in  height,  while 
close  in  on  the  western  side  of  the  landscape 
runs  the  "  Taghconic "  range,  with  the  ton- 
sured summit  of  Bald  Head  near  by,  where  a 
fine  view  of  the  Catskills  may  be  obtained. 

This,  then,  was  the  beginning  of  the  crea- 
tion of  large  estates  in  Lenox.  In  twenty-five 
years,  or  at  the  opening  of  the  year  1880,  when 
the  author  first  made  the  acquaintance  of  this 
ancient  capital,  there  had  been  added  to  these 
seven  properties,  twenty-six;  and  since  1880 
forty-two,  making  in  all,  not  counting  the  same 
place  twice  where  it  has  simply  changed  hands, 
during  fifty  years,  seventy-five  distinct  places, 
showing  an  increased  ratio  of  growth.  Such 
an  aggregate  of  private  property  represents 
many  millions  of  dollars.  Villas,  surrounded 


Modern  Lenox  173 

by  extensive,  park-like  grounds,  overlook  the 
landscape  at  different  angles  of  vision,  and  dot 
the  hillsides  everywhere,  many  within  a  ra- 
dius of  a  mile  from  the  Lenox  post-office. 
Some  of  the  most  beautiful  estates  are  within 
a  radius  of  two  miles,  including  a  part  of  the 
northern  section  of  the  town  of  Stockbridge, 
and  cover  large  areas  of  territory  ;  while  a  still 
longer  radius  would  be  required  to  include 
the  handsome  properties  of  all  who  belong 
to  the  Lenox  colony.  The  author  will  not 
attempt  to  give  with  chronological  nicety  the 
order  in  the  creation  of  these  estates.  When 
he  knew  Lenox  first,  in  the  spring  of  1880, 
the  town  was  in  a  chrysalis  stage ;  it  was  be- 
coming, it  had  not  become.  There  were,  it  is 
true,  many  places  here  then,  but  the  Berk- 
shire Hills  were  attracting  only  those  who 
were  in  the  secret  of  their  charm.  The  estates 
which  were  in  existence  then  were,  in  addition 
to  those  already  described,  as  follows  ;  and  it 
will  be  seen  from  their  location  that  they 
were  pretty  generally  distributed  throughout 
the  township.  There  was  the  property  be- 
longing to  the  late  Mr.  Robeson,  who  bought 
the  old  Ellery  Sedgwick  place,  created  in 
1858  and  greatly  beautified  by  Professor  Salis- 
bury, its  next  owner,  in  1870.  Farther  away 


1 74  Lenox 

to  the  south,  on  what  was  formerly  known  as 
Walker  Hill,  were  two  large  estates :  the 
Bishop  place,  marking  like  the  Robeson 
grounds  historic  sites  in  the  growth  of  the 
county  and  town,  and  the  Goodman  property 
(the  old  Judge  Walker  place),  acquired  by  Mr. 
Richard  Goodman  from  the  Hon.  Judge  Pier- 
pont  in  1865,  by  whom  it  had  been  purchased 
from  John  Walker,  Esq.,  in  1859.  Farther 
away  to  the  southeast  was  a  cluster  of  estates 
grouped  around  Laurel  Lake :  the  Schenck 
property  then  being  laid  out  (for  the  last 
twelve  years  with  other  adjacent  land  merged 
in  the  Westinghouse  estate),  the  Goelet  farm, 
lately  bought  by  F.  K.  Sturgis,  Esq.,  and  the 
Sargent  and  Dorr  places,  the  latter  now  in 
the  possession  of  Mr.  R.  W.  Patterson.  The 
old  Beecher  place  was  then  owned  by  General 
Rathbone.  Off  to  the  west  in  addition  to  the 
Bullard  and  Tappan  places  were  the  estates 
belonging  to  Samuel  Ward,  Esq.  (acquired 
and  greatly  enlarged  ten  years  since  by  Mr. 
Anson  Phelps  Stokes)  and  the  Geo.  Higgin- 
son  place.  Within  a  mile  of  Lenox  post- 
office  at  that  time  were  the  following  smaller 
places,  viz.  :  the  properties  belonging  to  Mrs. 
Joseph  White,  Mr.  Alfred  Gilmore,  Mr.  Park- 
man  Shaw,  Mr,  Kneeland,  Professor  Egleston 


Modern  Lenox  175 

(purchased  by  him  from  Judge  Pierpont  in 
1859  for  $5600),  the  heirs  of  Charlotte  Cush- 
man,  Miss  Furniss,  Miss  Carey,  General  Bar- 
low, General  Oliver,  Mrs.  Kuhn,  Geo.  W. 
Folsom,  Esq.  (the  old  Brevoort  place)  ;  while 
off  to  the  northwest  were  the  three  very 
beautiful  estates  of  John  E.  Parsons  (since 
very  extensively  enlarged),  Henry  W.  Braem, 
Esq.  (present  Winthrop  place),  and  Dr.  R.  C. 
Greenleaf.  To  the  east  two  miles  from  the 
centre  of  the  town  was  the  Dana  place  ;  and 
to  the  north  about  the  same  distance  the  es- 
tate owned  by  Col.  R.  T.  Auchmuty. 

It  may  be  said  that  if  all  these  estates  were 
in  existence  prior  to  1880  substantially  the 
same  as  to-day,  Lenox  could  hardly  have  been 
obscure  at  that  time ;  yet  certainly  it  had  not 
leaped  into  the  world-wide  notoriety  it  now 
possesses.  In  the  last  twenty-one  years  there 
has  been  going  on  an  exodus  of  the  Yankee 
farmer,  and  in  place  of  his  farms,  great  estates 
have  come  up  as  if  by  magic ;  and  what  is 
more,  with  each  year  the  modest  summer 
house  which  once  satisfied  the  summer  resident 
here  has  given  way  before  the  more  stately 
type  of  villa.  Some  of  the  most  beautiful  es- 
tates here  have  been  created  within  the  last 
twenty  years  ;  many  within  the  last  ten.  All 


1 76  Lenox 

varieties  of  domestic  architecture  are  seen, 
from  the  Swiss  chalet  to  the  Tudor  castle, 
from  the  colonial  mansion  to  the  turreted 
composite  majestic  in  size  and  dignity,  and 
from  the  plain  summer  house  to  the  architec- 
tural perfections  of  the  chaste  Elizabethan 
structure  or  the  grand  and  simple  beauty  of 
the  Petit  Trianon.  Bridges  of  elaborate  and 
solid  pattern  in  granite  grace  the  drives  in 
some  of  the  private  grounds ;  monoliths  from 
Egypt  and  marble  antiques  adorn  others. 
Each  villa  commands  its  own  charming  land- 
scape in  which  a  lake  is  set  as  a  pearl  sur- 
rounded by  emerald  ;  and  it  is  needless  to  say, 
as  the  surpassing  charm  of  Lenox  is  in  its 
drives,  a  system  of  road-construction  on  the 
highways  has,  at  great  expense,  been  made 
possible,  thus  preserving  this  pleasure  as  a 
permanent  and  delightful  feature  of  the  mod- 
ern town.  The  Lenox  of  to-day,  then,  has 
the  same  old  quiet  dignity  it  always  had,  set 
in  a  lustre  of  glory  ;  Nature  perfected  and 
adorned  by  Art ;  worth  crowned  with  a  re- 
splendent wreath  of  favor  from  those  who 
lavish  upon  it  the  substantial  proofs  of  their 
affection. 

And  now  I  propose  to  take  the  reader  with 
me  on  a  few  walks  and  drives  about  Lenox  in 


Modern  Lenox  177 

order  that  we  may  see  some  of  these  estates 
with  their  charming  villas.  A  convenient 
place  to  start  from  will  be  the  Paterson  mon- 
ument, which  stands  at  the  "  four  corners  "  in 
the  heart  of  the  village.  The  adjacent  elms 
of  hoary  age  must  feel  lonely,  indeed,  as  they 
have  seen  the  busy  generations  come  and  go 
across  the  site  now  occupied  by  this  granite 
shaft.  A  glance  at  its  inscription  is  worth  the 
while,  and  while  we  stand  there  I  would  like, 
though  I  forbear,  to  read  you  a  page  out  of 
Fields's  History  of  Berkshire  (1829),  or  Hol- 
land's Western  Massachusetts,  to  show  the 
marches,  the  sufferings,  the  heroisms  of  the 
Lenox  soldiers  under  Paterson  in  the  Revolu- 
tion. General  Paterson's  monument  in  the 
centre  of  the  town  is  a  mute  bugle-call  to  pa- 
triotism. The  "  four  corners  "  where  it  stands 
are  the  meeting-place  of  two  intersecting 
streets,  Main  and  Walker,  though  the  south- 
ern prolongation  of  Main  Street  is  called 
"Court-house  Hill"  (more  properly  Stock- 
bridge  Road),  and  the  western  extension  of 
Walker  Street  is  called  from  the  monument 
West  Street.  Court-house  Hill  slopes  off 
precipitously  from  Monument  Square.  West 
Street  is  a  continuous  but  less  abrupt  descent 
for  nearly  a  mile,  and  both  these  hills,  with 


1 78  Lenox 

"Church  Hill"  in  the  rear  coming  down  to- 
ward the  monument  from  the  north,  are  merry 
with  coasters  in  the  season.  Looking  up  from 
Monument  Square  toward  the  old  village 
church-on-the-hill  is  one  thing  in  June ;  quite 
another  in  December.  Hither  came  in  all 
winds  and  weathers  for  eighty  years  the  yeo- 
men and  gentry  of  Berkshire  for  litigation, 
first  to  that  little  Court-house  on  the  south- 
east corner  which  is  now  (1902)  being  moved 
off  to  make  way  for  the  imposing  Town  Hall 
in  process  of  construction,  and  then  after  1816 
to  that  grandly  simple  and  stately  building 
behind  us,  and  just  the  flip  of  a  stone  up  Main 
Street  from  the  square  where  we  are  standing, 
the  second  Court-house,  now  known  as  Sedg- 
wick  Hall. 

The  first  walk  one  takes  in  Lenox  is  up  the 
heights  rising  on  the  north  of  the  town  and 
known  as  Church  Hill.  On  a  typical  "  Berk- 
shire day, "  clear,  bracing,  and  exhilarating, 
one  can  walk  miles  with  slight  fatigue.  An 
altitude  of  thirteen  hundred  feet,  like  that  of 
Lenox  at  this  Monument  Square,  where  we 
are  standing,  is  not  too  high  for  vigorous  ex- 
ercise. The  first  building  on  our  right  as  we 
turn  to  go  away  from  the  Paterson  monu- 
ment is  the  Curtis  House,  which  has  recently 


Modern  Lenox  179 

been  greatly  enlarged,  transformed,  and  mod- 
ernized; and  next  beyond  it  stands  Sedgwick 
Hall,  where  the  Town  Library  finds  ample 
housing  in  this  ancient  and  classic  building, 
once  the  county  Court-house.  Adjoining  this 
edifice  on  the  north  is  Mr.  W.  C.  Schermer- 
horn's  property,  for  many  years  in  the  posses- 
sion of  the  county  as  the  site  of  its  jail. 
Twenty  years  ago  the  two  .modest  cottages 
here  standing  were  built  in  place  of  the  old 
jail-house  which  had  been  moved  off,  and  now 
the  glow  of  altar  fires  replaces  the  glare  of 
hate  behind  barred  windows,  greeting  our 
fathers  as  they  passed  up  and  down  the  street. 
We  pass  on  up  Main  Street  noting,  where 
Cliffwood  Street  runs  off  obliquely  to  the  north- 
west, an  old  building  on  the  opposite  side  of 
the  street,  with  the  date  "  1803  "  on  ^ts  belfry, 
the  venerable  "  Lenox  Academy "  to  whose 
classic  halls  once  came  the  youth  within  a 
radius  considerably  over  fifty  miles ;  and  if  we 
might  reckon  a  few  students  from  New  Jersey 
and  South  Carolina,  the  area  of  its  influence 
would  be  seen  to  be  enormous.  Midway  be- 
tween the  Academy  and  yonder  church-on- 
the-hill,  we  pass  on  our  right  the  Roman 
Catholic  church,  built  in  1873,  though  for 
twenty  years  before  that  the  project  of  such  a 


i8o  Lenox 

building  was  mooted.  And  here  we  are  at 
the  top  of  the  hill,  a  half-mile  from  Curtis's, 
face  to  face  with  a  rare  and  classic  specimen 
of  old-time  church  architecture,  the  ancient 
village  church  built  here  in  1805  and  dedicated 
to  the  service  of  God  January  i,  1806.  This 
edifice  replaced  an  older  one  that  stood  on  the 
same  site,  a  few  rods  farther  south.  Let  us 
stroll  out  into  the  churchyard,  or  if  you  are 
not  too  tired  climb  the  belfry  tower.  What  a 
prospect !  One  can  easily  understand  now 
why  this  church  is  so  conspicuous  an  object 
for  miles  around  —  you  practically  never  get 
away  from  it.  I  myself  have  seen  it  over  on 
the  heights  of  Monterey,  fourteen  miles  away. 
But  we  must  not  forget  our  quest,  and  so 
we  will  leave  the  scenery  which  has  been  so 
oft  alluded  to  in  this  book,  and  try  to  locate  a 
few  of  the  "  places "  from  our  eyrie.  It  has 
been  a  favorite  place  for  the  generations  to 
come,  this  church  belfry,  yet  for  the  sake  of 
a  more  extensive  view,  and  the  greater  con- 
venience of  seeing  it,  I  am  going  to  ask  you 
to  accept  a  chair  by  my  side  on  the  piazza  of 
the  Aspinwall  Hotel,  which  has  recently  been 
built  a  little  farther  up  this  hillside,  and  which 
with  its  extensive  grounds,  its  magnificent 
situation,  its  ample  accommodations  and  mod- 


! 


o 

CQ 


Modern  Lenox  181 

ern  facilities  enters  this  year  upon  its  career 
of  promise.  By  a  "  turn  of  the  eyeball,"  as 
Mr.  Beecher  said,  your  eye  sweeps  the  far-off 
horizon  from  Greylock  to  Taghconic  Dome. 
Lenox  lies  down  immediately  beneath  you. 
Our  aerial  point  of  view  does  not  disclose  the 
location  of  all  the  estates,  but  will  reveal 
salient  features.  Out  of  Stockbridge  Bowl, 
three  miles  off  there  to  the  southwest,  rises  on 
the  right  "  Bald  Head,"  on  whose  sides  as 
they  slope  down  many  hundred  feet  into  the 
lake  we  can  see  beautiful  summer  villas. 
Here  is,  among  others  much  smaller,  the  nine- 
hundred-acre  estate  of  Anson  P.  Stokes,  Esq., 
"  Shadowbrook,"  adorned  with  a  grand  and 
palatial  castle  in  granite  of  composite  archi- 
tecture. On  the  other  side  of  the  "  Bowl " 
rises  "  Rattlesnake,"  and  between  us  and  it  a 
very  high  knoll  on  which  is  perched  "  Allen 
Winden,"  the  charming  villa  of  Charles  Lanier, 
Esq.,  whose  many  acres  adjoin  some  of  the 
largest  estates  in  Lenox.  The  land  descends, 
as  we  have  said,  on  either  side  of  "  Allen 
Winden "  to  two  small  lakes.  Across  the 
waters  of  the  one,  Lily  Pond,  on  rising  ground 
lies  "  Wheatleigh,"  owned  by  Henry  H.  Cook, 
Esq.,  with  the  belfry  of  the  Curtisville  village 
church  in  the  far  distance  ;  at  the  steep  western 


1 82  Lenox 

side  of  the  other,  Laurel  Lake,  stretches 
over  a  vast  acreage  "  Erskine  Park,"  the  estate 
of  the  distinguished  inventor,  George  West- 
inghouse,  Esq.,  with  the  tall  and  slender  spire 
of  the  Lee  village  church  in  the  distance, 
erect  and  white  against  its  mountain  back- 
ground, and  the  lake  in  the  foreground. 
Between  these  two  lakes  lie  "  Interlaken,"  be- 
longing to  the  heirs  of  the  late  D.  W.  Bishop, 
Esq.,  and  "  Elm  Court,"  the  property  of  Wil- 
liam D.  Sloane,  Esq.,  either  of  which  two  last- 
named  estates  covers  a  vast  area  of  territory. 
"Elm  Court"  was  created  by  Mr.  Sloane  in 
1887,  though  greatly  enlarged  since  by  exten- 
sive acquisitions  of  adjacent  property. 

Turning  our  eyes  now  far  around  to  the 
left,  on  the  ground  rising  out  of  Laurel  Lake 
to  the  east  and  north,  and  touching  the  very 
waters  themselves,  are  the  Wharton,  Sargent, 
and  Goelet  estates  ;  while  back  of  them  on 
still  higher  ground,  forming  a  sort  of  concen- 
tric quadrant,  are  the  Foster,  Barnes,  John 
Sloane,  and  Paterson  estates,  all  large  and 
adorned  with  beautiful  villas.  We  do  not  see 
all  these  places  from  where  we  are  sitting  ; 
but  we  see  pretty  nearly  where  they  are.  We 
shall  see  them  more  closely  when  we  come  to 
go  out  to  them  in  our  drives  about  Lenox. 


Modern  Lenox  183 

All  of  them  are  of  comparatively  recent  con- 
struction, though  one,  that  of  John  Sloane, 
Esq.,  "  Wyndhurst,"  is  on  the  old  Beecher 
place.  In  a  way  it  may  be  said  that  the  ridge 
from  our  height  of  observation  to  the  Lanier 
place  and  on  beyond  to  the  Westinghouse 
estate  is  a  sort  of  divide,  with  the  waters  of 
one  side  flowing  ultimately  into  Stockbridge 
Bowl,  and  those  of  the  other  side  reaching  at 
last  Laurel  Lake.  Each  of  these  two  longi- 
tudinally divided  sections  of  the  town  has  its 
distinctive  view  ;  each  was  early  recognized  in 
the  development  of  the  place  into  the  resort  it 
has  become.  If  now  we  turn  our  eyes  to  the 
northward  where  Greylock  stands  up  clearly 
in  the  far-off  northern  horizon,  we  get  another 
distinct  section  of  Lenox,  and  here  two  miles 
away  from  the  Aspinwall  are  the  estate  of  the 
late  Col.  R.  T.  Auchmuty,  "  The  Dormers," 
and,  nearer,  that  of  the  late  William  H.  Brad- 
ford, Esq.,  "  Wayside."  These  are  large  es- 
tates, charmingly  situated  on  high  ground 
commanding  views  of  Greylock,  the  Housa- 
tonic  River  up  and  down  its  tortuous  course, 
the  beautiful  October  Mountain  rising  abruptly 
from  the  opposite  bank  of  the  winding  stream, 
and  off  in  the  opposite  direction  the  mas- 
sive mountain  ramparts  of  the  Taghconics, 


184  Lenox 

with  "  Yokun's  Seat "  conspicuous  against  them, 
as  though  that  ancient  chieftain  were  fortified 
by  natural  barriers  against  the  dwellers  in 
Mount  Ephraim  (Richmond)  on  the  other 
side.  Nestled  under  "Yokun's  Seat,"  though 
itself  on  very  high  ground,  is  the  estate  of 
Thomas  Shields  Clarke,  the  sculptor. 

But  so  far  our  glance  has  been  out  upon  the 
township  rather  than  down  upon  the  town. 
Look  down  now,  sheer  down,  say  three  hun- 
dred feet  from  this  sightly  piazza  where  we 
are  sitting.  We  are  upon  the  edge  of  a  bluff. 
The  golfers  going  the  rounds  in  the  links  be- 
low us  seem  moving  miniatures.  Half-way 
down  the  steep  bluff,  and  a  little  to  the  left, 
are  two  handsome  estates  commanding,  though 
lower,  much  the  same  view  as  we  are  seeing, 
"  Belvoir  Terrace,"  the  property  of  Morris 
K.  Jesup,  Esq.,  President  of  the  New  York 
Chamber  of  Commerce,  and  "  Under  Ledge," 
belonging  to  Joseph  W.  Burden,  Esq. 

Down  there  on  the  lower  level,  among  many 
other  smaller  estates,  all  of  which  are  situated 
on  high  enough  ground  to  command  prospects 
which  vie  with  the  one  stretching  out  before 
our  eyes,  are  three  estates  created  twenty-five 
years  ago  :  "  Windyside,"  with  its  Swiss  chalet, 
owned  by  Dr.  Richard  C.  Greenleaf ;  "  Ethel- 


Modern  Lenox  185 

I 

wyn,"  the  property  of  Mrs.  Robert  Winthrop, 
lately  purchased  of  the  Henry  Braem  estate,— 
another  part  of  the  same  estate  having  been 
purchased  by  Dr.  Henry  P.  Jaques  and  called 
"  Home  Farm  "  (that  is  it  that  we  see  with  its 
English  manor-house  yonder  to  the  right)  ; 
and  the  other  one  of  the  three  estates  named  is 
"  Stonover,"  the  very  large  and  beautiful  es- 
tate belonging  to  John  E.  Parsons,  Esq.  Mr. 
Parsons's  property  has  been  very  greatly  en- 
larged since  his  original  purchases  twenty-five 
years  since,  by  the  acquisition  of  a  tract  of 
adjoining  marshland  which  has  been  drained 
and  transformed  into  a  park,  which  the  public 
very  generally  and  gladly  avails  itself  of  for 
drives.  I  think  I  have  indicated  the  locations 
of  the  largest  estates  in  Lenox  with  the  ex- 
ception of  two  which  lie  off  to  the  east  of  us, 
the  villas  belonging  to  the  same  being  in  the 
heart  of  the  town  itself,  but  a  stone's  throw 
from  the  campanile  tower  of  Trinity  Church, 
yonder,  far  to  the  left  :  "  Ventfort  Hall,"  built 
by  George  H.  Morgan,  Esq.,  an  Elizabethan 
manor-house,  large,  rich,  chaste,  and  simple, 
and  "  Pine  Croft,"  the  summer  home  of  F. 
Augustus  Schermerhorn,  Esq.,  whose  long 
residence,  extensive  holdings  of  realty,  and 
deep  interest  in  Lenox  make  him,  like  so 


i 86  Lenox 

many  others  of  the  summer  residents  here, 
seem  as  much  a  part  of  the  town  as  those  who 
have  been  born  and  bred  within  it. 

I  have  not  tried  to  indicate  with  any  com- 
pleteness the  locations  of  all  the  estates,  villas, 
and  summer  cottages  in  Lenox ;  only  what 
could  be  seen  in  the  main  from  the  lofty  "  As- 
pinwall,"  which  crowns  the  crest  of  this  bluff 
on  the  old  Woolsey  place,  one  of  the  oldest 
estates  in  the  town.  Let  us  now  descend  to 
the  churchyard  where  sleep  the  generations  of 
the  Lenox  dead  ;  a  cemetery  whose  prospect 
is  hardly  less  entrancing  than  the  one  at  which 
we  have  been  looking  from  the  heights  above. 
The  street  which  runs  past  this  ancient  church- 
yard is  the  base  of  an  isosceles  triangle  with 
its  apex  in  the  village  at  the  junction  of  Main 
and  Cliffwood  streets,  and  in  each  angle  of 
this  triangular  section  is  a  "  summer-place "  : 
"  Edge  Road,"  in  the  apex,  owned  by  Mrs.  A. 
C.  Kingsland,  while  up  here  at  either  end  of 
the  base  line  are  "  Hillside,"  purchased  by 
Mrs.  Hartman  Kuhn,  October  27,  1870,  so 
the  local  press  of  that  period  stated,  for  $1600 
(!),  and  "  Breezy  Corners,"  owned  by  Mrs  J. 
Williams  Diddle.  Standing  here  at  "  Breezy 
Corners  "  with  "  Belvoir  Terrace  "  rising  high 
at  our  back  we  see  up  the  road  leading  to  the 


Modern  Lenox  187 

village,  the  Livingston  estate  with  its  pleasing 
villa,  "Osceola  Lodge,"  "  Sunnyridge,"  the 
property  of  Geo.  W.  Folsom,  Esq.,  "  The 
Homestead "  the  village  property  of  Anson 
Phelps  Stokes,  Esq.,  formerly  owned  by 
Charles  F.  McKim,  the  architect,  and  in  the 
opposite  direction  "  Deepdene,"  the  estate  of 
Dr.  F.  P.  Kinnicutt,  while  in  front  of  us,  at 
the  side  of  "  The  Homestead,"  whose  villa  is 
of  unique  architectural  design,  opens  Yokun 
Avenue,  with  the  estate  of  Mrs.  E.  G.  Bacon 
on  the  right,  adjoining  the  golf  grounds.  As 
we  are  out  on  this  "walk"  to  get  an  idea  of 
the  general  location  of  the  estates  in  Lenox, 
our  return  to  the  Paterson  monument  will  be 
by  the  way  of  Yokun  Avenue  to  West  Street, 
where  turning  to  the  left  we  soon  arrive  at  the 
place  from  which  we  started.  On  the  way 
hither  from  "  Breezy  Corners  "  we  pass  just 
beyond  the  entrance  to  the  golf  links  the  en- 
trances to  "  Windyside,"  "  Ethelwyn,"  "  Ston- 
over,"  all  of  which  we  saw  from  above ;  and 
now  continuing  our  way  we  pass  on  the 
right  the  entrance  to  the  extensive  "  Stonover 
Park "  and  on  the  left  the  two  pretty  and 
modest  villas  of  Miss  Mary  DeP.  Carey  and 
Miss  C.  Furniss,  "Gusty  Gables"  and  "  Edge- 
comb."  It  is  still  very  high  ground  here, 


1 88  Lenox 

although  we  have  made  such  a  descent  to  reach 
it,  and  the  same  enrapturing  landscape  has 
greeted  and  rested  the  eye  at  every  step.  We 
make  our  way  on  to  West  Street,  where  on 
the  corner  at  our  right  stands  the  old  "  Char- 
lotte Cushman  cottage,"  given  by  Miss  Cush- 
man  to  Emma  Stebbins,  the  sculptor,  and  on 
our  left  the  newly  created  summer-place  owned 
by  Mr.  D.  F.  Griswold,  while  right  before  us 
lies  the  Robeson  estate  with  an  old  English 
type  of  Gothic  manor-house,  built  of  stone  and 
rather  low,  standing  at  the  far  end  of  a  large  and 
level  lawn  bordered  with  ancient  elms.  This 
house  was  built  in  1858  by  Mr.  Ellery  Sedg- 
wick,  overhauled  and  repaired  in  1871  by  Pro- 
fessor Salisbury,  its  next  owner,  at  an  expense 
of  $150,000,  and  after  a  few  years'  occupancy 
was  sold  to  Mr.  W.  R.  Robeson,  who  occupied 
it  every  summer  until  his  death.  The  Robeson 
property  is  interesting  as  one  of  the  historic 
sites  in  the  days  when  Lenox  was  the  county 
seat.  Immediately  adjoining  this  estate  on 
the  west  is  "  Brookhurst,"  owned  by  the  Shat- 
tuck  heirs,  but  we  turn  and  come  up  the 
hill,  passing  next  beyond  the  Robeson  place 
on  the  east  a  small  estate  owned  by  Mrs. 
Thornton  K.  Lothrop,  and  adjoining  that 
"  Cosy  Nook,"  the  summer  home  of  Miss 


Modern  Lenox  189 

Helen  Parish.  Opposite  is  "  Fairlawn,"  be- 
longing to  the  heirs  of  Mr.  Charles  Kneeland, 
but  one  of  the  earliest  "  summer-places "  in 
Lenox,  having  been  originally  owned  by  Mrs. 
Lee  of  New  Orleans,  one  of  the  first  comers 
to  the  Berkshire  resort.  Emerging  from  West 
Street  on  Monument  Square,  we  pass  on  the 
southwest  corner  the  beautiful  property  known 
as  the  "  Bishop  place,"  once  the  property  of 
Judge  Henry  Walker  Bishop,  a  prominent 
citizen  of  Lenox,  who  was  elevated  to  the 
bench  of  the  Court  of  Common  Pleas.  Since 
his  death  this  estate  has  been  owned  by  his 
son,  Henry  Bishop,  Esq.,  of  Chicago. 

And  now  just  to  get  a  closer  view  of  some 
of  the  outlying  estates  we  have  been  looking 
down  upon  from  our  far-off  eyrie,  I  want  to 
take  the  reader  for  a  couple  of  drives  on,  let 
us  say,  some  beautiful  day  in  June ;  one  shall 
be  in  the  morning  and  one  in  the  afternoon. 
We  will  start  for  our  first  trip  from  the  Pater- 
son  monument  again,  and  driving  up  Main 
Street  through  Cliffwood,  we  pass  on  the  left 
some  small  places,  belonging  respectively  to 
J.  Egmont  Schermerhorn,  Esq.,  B.  K.  Stevens, 
Esq.,  and  Miss  Anna  Shaw,  the  latter  the  old 
Hotchkin  place,  for  many  years  the  residence 
of  the  cultured  family  of  John  Hotchkin, 


190  Lenox 

principal  of  Lenox  Academy  and  founder  of 
Lenox  Library,  and  reach  at  length  the  en- 
trance to  "  Stonover  Park."  It  is  the  old 
"  Belden  Marsh"  as  the  fathers  knew  it,  but 
now  the  revelation  of  what  a  few  tiles  and  the 
landscape  gardener's  art  can  do.  We  drive 
for  a  mile  or  more  over  perfect  roadbeds, 
through  wooded  lanes  and  out  in  the  "  open," 
now  a  graded  loop  down  some  steep  declivity, 
now  a  straight  and  level  course  between  ranks 
of  chestnuts,  and  at  length  reach  the  Ston- 
over farm  buildings  under  the  crest  of  Bald 
Head.  On  we  go  over  the  country  road  to 
"  Shadowbrook  "  a  mile  away  and  by  an  easy 
ascent  through  the  Stokes  estate  are  soon  on 
the  summit  of  the  tonsured  mountain,  looking 
off  on  one  of  the  loveliest  landscapes  in  the 
world,  with  the  picturesque  and  broken  chain 
of  the  Catskills  making  a  ragged  sky-line  fifty 
miles  to  the  west.  We  descend  to  the  palatial 
villa  on  this  vast  estate ;  large,  turreted,  baro- 
nial, from  which  the  spacious  lawns  go  sweep- 
ing down  almost  to  the  very  edge  of  peaceful 
Mahkeenac,  —  everywhere  the  most  trans- 
porting scenery,  the  fresh  and  luxuriant  leaf- 
age, the  liquid  notes  of  the  bobolink,  the 
variegated  carpet  of  the  fields,  all  the  rich 
shades  and  tints,  the  different  hues  of  blue  in 


Modern  Lenox  191 

sky,  and  lake,  and  far-off  mountains,  and  the 
commingled  perfume  of  lilac,  syringa,  and  the 
wild  flora  of  the  region.  Here  at  "  Shadow- 
brook  "  we  see,  for  the  looking,  a  cluster  of 
fine  estates.  Adjoining  Mr.  Stokes  on  the 
south  is  "  Lakeside,"  owned  by  Charles  Astor 
Bristed,  Esq.,  while  back  of  us  on  the  higher 
slopes  of  Bald  Head  are  "  Bonnie  Brae," 
owned  by  Henry  Barclay,  Esq.,  and  "  The 
Orchard,"  belonging  to  H.  H.  Pease,  Esq. 

We  make  an  abrupt  turn  here  and  take  the 
Hawthorne  road,  which  runs  on  high  ground 
along  the  northern  side  of  Stockbridge 
Bowl,  and  almost  immediately  pass  through 
the  very  heart  of  three  fine  estates  on  both 
sides  of  the  highway,  the  villas  being  on  the 
still  higher  ground  on  the  left :  "  The  Cor- 
ners," owned  by  Geo.  Higginson  and  acquired 
by  him  in  1860;  "  Tanglewood,"  which  is  the 
old  Tappan  place,  a  beautiful  estate  which 
was  created  more  than  fifty  years  ago ;  and 
"  Highwood,"  owned  by  the  heirs  of  the  late 
Mr.  Wm.  S.  Bullard,  who  bought  this  estate 
of  Mr.  Samuel  Ward,  by  whom  it  was  laid  out 
in  1846,  the  oldest  private  estate  in  Lenox. 
This  section  of  the  town  is  trebly  interesting ; 
first,  on  account  of  its  rare  scenic  beauty ; 
again,  because  this  is  the  starting-point  of 


i92  Lenox 

Lenox  as  the  resort  of  those  who  by  affluence 
and  rare  taste  have  created  magnificent  estates; 
and  still  again,  because  of  the  memories  of 
Hawthorne.  We  are  passing  now  on  the 
right  the  site  of  the  "little  old  red  house" 
where  Hawthorne  wrote  his  House  of  the  Seven 
Gables.  The  genius  of  Hawthorne  is  here 
"  writ  large "  on  the  landscape,  on  the  very 
names  of  the  estates,  on  the  road  along  which 
we  are  being  driven.  A  half-mile  farther  on, 
and  around  a  picturesque  turn  through  some 
tall  pines,  called  "  Lovers'  Lane,"  we  come  to 
41  Wheatleigh,"  with  its  spacious  and  stately 
Italian  villa,  —  an  estate  of  some  hundreds  of 
acres  belonging  to  Henry  H.  Cook,  Esq.;  and 
here  by  a  very  steep  grade  and  a  spiral  descent 
we  reach  the  edge  of  the  lake,  across  whose 
inlet  we  bowl. 

Almost  immediately  we  turn  abruptly  to  the 
left,  into  the  truly  great  estate  of  the  late  D. 
W.  Bishop,  Esq.,  "  Interlaken."  A  secluded 
carriage  road  skirts  the  wooded  bank  of  the 
inlet  for  a  mile  into  the  heart  of  primeval 
forest  where  the  road  winds  steeply  upward 
many  hundred  feet  amid  grand  old  trees,  to 
the  heights  above,  and  the  highway  (Stock- 
bridge  Road).  Reaching  this  point  and  turn- 
ing to  the  south  we  drive  on  to  "  Erskine 


Modern  Lenox  193 

Park,"  the  extensive  and  beautiful  estate  of 
Geo.  Westinghouse,  Esq.,  passing  as  we  go 
thither  many  fine  places,  —  "  The  Poplars  " 
recently  purchased  of  the  Philip  Sands  estate 
by  S.  Frothingham,  Esq.,  "Merrywood"  op- 
posite, on  the  right,  owned  by  Charles  Billiard, 
Esq.,  and  the  very  extensive  property  of  Wil- 
liam D.  Sloane,  Esq.,  "  Elm  Court,"  a  grand 
estate  lying  along  the  road  here,  and  the  cross- 
roads, for  three  miles,  its  beautiful  villa, 
built  near  an  ancient  elm,  being  charmingly 
situated  on  a  commanding  eminence  nearer  the 
village.  We  shall  see  it  on  our  return.  But 
here  we  are  at  the  junction  of  Stockbridge 
Road  and  Kemble  Street,  where  we  enter  the 
Westinghouse  grounds,  lying  in  the  extreme 
southeastern  part  of  the  town.  Miles  of  spa- 
cious white  roads  thread  their  way  by  graceful 
turns  through  vast  sweeps  of  lawn,  dotted 
here  and  there  with  most  beautiful  old  elms, 
and  now  the  long  driveways  skirt,  and  now 
they  cross  by  massive  bridges,  an  artificial  lake 
(in  which  are  five /<?/.?  d'eau),  until  they  encircle 
the  handsome,  white  villa  which  stands  half  a 
mile  from  the  entrance  on  a  high  elevation  of 
land  rising  abruptly  three  hundred  feet  out 
of  Laurel  Lake.  What  a  charming  prospect 
is  here  !  We  have  been  for  the  most  part 


194  Lenox 

looking  into  the  other  valley  where  Stockbridge 
Bowl  peacefully  reposes  at  the  base  of  the 
Taghconics.  Here  is  another  "  mountain  mir- 
ror," the  beautiful  Laurel  Lake,  which  forms 
the  centre-piece  in  the  landscape  for  a  dozen 
places  grouped  around  it.  Directly  across 
the  lake,  as  we  stand  here  near  the  "  Erskine 
Park"  villa,  the  Hoosacs  rise  with  an  average 
altitude  of  two  thousand  feet,  October  Moun- 
tain lies  empurpled  in  the  evening  glow,  while 
on  and  on  the  mountains  stretch  toward  the 
north  where  twenty  miles  away  Greylock 
rises  over  all.  Immediately  beneath  us  lies 
the  placid  lake,  around  to  the  left  rise  the 
terraced  heights  of  Lenox  adorned  with  many 
beautiful  villas,  and  as  we  turn  to  retrace  our 
way  to  the  entrance  we  see  across  the  sunlit 
lawn  the  awesome  majesty  of  Rattlesnake, 
fifteen  hundred  feet,  darkly  standing  against  a 
westering  sun.  Glimpsing  the  ever-present 
scenery  through  the  trees  as  we  return  by  an- 
other drive  to  the  entrance,  we  see  from  one 
point  the  terminal  mountains  at  either  end  of 
the  county,  Greylock  and  the  Dome,  and  also 
look  around  the  spur  of  Rattlesnake  to  still 
Mahkeenac  at  the  base  of  Bald  Head. 

We  make  our  way  back  to  the  village  along 
Stockbridge  Road  once  more  in  order  that  we 


-ft; 
o 


Modern  Lenox  195 

may  see  at  closer  range  some  handsome  prop- 
erties and  villas  which  on  their  very  sightly 
elevations  we  have  been  seeing  before  at  a 
distance.  A  short  way  beyond  the  place 
where  we  entered  this  highway  by  the  steep 
wood-road  through  the  "Interlaken"  estate, 
we  drive  for  a  mile  on  Telford  Road,  built  at 
private  expense,  along  the  ridge  which  divides 
Lenox  into  two  valleys.  This  is  all  very  high 
ground  through  here,  commanding  superb  pros- 
spects.  On  the  left  we  see  "  Elm  Court,"  the 
spacious  residence  of  Wm.  D.  Sloane,  Esq., 
looking  off  on  a  most  enchanting  landscape, 
two  lakes  in  the  foreground  of  the  picture  and 
a  background  of  mountains  reaching  up  and 
down  the  valley  for  miles  in  either  direction  ; 
on  the  right,  opposite,  the  "  Interlaken"  villa 
which  looks  into  the  other  valley  and  off  upon 
its  glistening  lake,  a  most  picturesque  bit  of 
landscape.  Farther  on  we  pass  an  old-time 
bit  of  domestic  architecture,  "  Yokun,"  an 
eighteenth-century  survival  which  was  built  in 
1794  by  Judge  William  Walker  of  Lenox,  but 
for  many  years,  with  its  fine  acreage,  was  the 
property  of  the  late  R.  Goodman,  Sr.,  and  now 
owned  by  his  heirs.  It  is  most  sightly  ;  almost 
as  much  so  as  its  more  fashionable  neighbor 
"Allen  Winden "  farther  up  the  slope.  It 


196  Lenox 

looks  off  upon  both  valleys  and  the  three 
lakes.  Beyond  "  Yokun  "  on  the  left,  high  up 
on  the  very  crest  of  the  ridge,  stands  "  Allen 
Winden,"  the  handsome  summer  residence  of 
Charles  Lanier,  Esq.,  whose  wife  was  the 
great-granddaughter  of  General  Paterson,  and 
who  himself  has  given  proof  of  the  depths  of 
a  longf  and  sincere  attachment  for  Lenox  in 

o 

many  substantial  ways.  Across  from  "  Allen 
Winden  "  is  "  Maplehurst,"  the  beautiful  estate 
of  Mrs.  Joseph  M.  White,  whose  friendship 
for  Lenox  extends  over  so  many  years,  and 
who  has  endeared  herself,  as  have  so  many 
others,  by  opportune  ministries  to  the  people 
of  the  town.  Coming  this  way  toward  the 
village  once  more,  we  pass  in  order  three 
places,  "  Lithgow  Farm,"  "  Plumsted,"  and 
"  Redwood,"  belonging  respectively  to  Clinton 
G.  Gilmore,  Esq.,  Joseph  S.  Whistler,  Esq., 
and  S.  Parkman  Shaw,  Esq.,  the  last-named 
place  being  within  a  stone's  throw  of  the  Pat- 
erson monument  only  a  few  rods  down  Court- 
house Hill. 

A  fresh  pair  of  horses  in  the  afternoon,  if 
you  are  not  filled  to  satiety  and  fatigue  by  the 
morning's  excursion,  will  enable  us  to  "do" 
the  rest  of  the  town  by  a  short  drive  in  the 
direction  of  the  neighboring  town  of  Lee, 


Modern  Lenox  197 

along  the  new  "  State  Road "  and  back  by 
Kemble  Street.  We  start  once  more  from 
the  Paterson  monument  in  front  of  Curtis's, 
and  take  Walker  Street  out  to  the  eastward. 
The  new  Town  Hall  stands  on  our  right,  op- 
posite the  hotel.  We  pass  on  the  left  Church 
Street,  a  little  way  down  which  is  the  Metho- 
dist church,  organized  early  in  the  nineteenth 
century.  On  the  right  we  see  at  once,  here 
in  the  very  centre  of  the  village,  not  two  hun- 
dred feet  from  the  Monument,  what  was 
hidden  before — the  same  lovely,  far-stretching 
"  view  "  which  we  saw  from  the  piazza  of  the 
hotel  on  the  high  hill  yonder.  The  "  view  " 
is  everywhere  ;  you  have  not  to  go  anywhere 
to  get  it ;  it  is  always  before  you,  except 
where  the  thick  setting  of  ornamental  hedge 
has  shut  it  out,  and  then  the  enchanting  pros- 
pect is  aggravatingly  just  over  the  hedge. 
As  we  drive  along  Walker  Street  our  atten- 
tion is  constantly  arrested  by  the  glimpses 
of  the  magnificent  landscape  through  the 
trees. 

On  the  right  we  quickly  reach,  where  Kemble 
Street  diverges,  the  handsome  Episcopal  church 
property,  with  its  church  edifice,  parish-house, 
and  rectory,  all  of  blue  Berkshire  limestone. 
The  ecclesiastical  organization  connected  with 


198  Lenox 

this  church  is  quite  old.  Services  accord- 
ing to  the  Episcopal  order  of  worship  were 
held  in  the  town  as  early  as  1771,  and  regu- 
larly after  1793,  though  the  "  Mission  "  here 
was  carried  on  jointly  with  the  church  in 
Stockbridge  for  some  years.  But  Trinity 
Episcopal  Church,  Lenox,  hardly  became  self- 
supporting  until  1856,  when  its  rector  at  that 
time,  the  Rev.  W.  H.  Brooks,  stated  in  his 
annual  report :  "  In  the  summer  season  Lenox 
being  a  great  resort  our  congregations  during 
that  portion  of  the  year  are  always  of  good 
size  and  frequently  fill  the  church,"  and  he  adds 
that  the  whole  number  of  communicants  be- 
longing to  the  local  church  was  at  that  time 
fourteen.  To-day  the  condition  of  the  Episco- 
pal church  is  far  in  excess  of  the  promise  of 
fifty  years  ago.  The  present  property  was 
acquired  in  1887,  and  with  the  phenomenal 
growth  of  Lenox  as  a  place  of  resort  and  of 
fine  estates,  this  church  has  greatly  strength- 
ened its  stakes.  It  is  the  church  of  the  sum- 
mer residents,  owns  a  valuable  property  with 
church  edifice  and  parish-house  in  an  outlying 
section  of  the  town,  helps  liberally  every  good 
cause  in  the  county,  and  has  greatly  increased 
its  roll  of  communicants.  It  was  only  after  a 
good  deal  of  discussion  that  this  site  was 


Modern  Lenox  199 

determined  upon  for  the  new  church,  but  it  is 
an  ideal  one. 

Opposite  the  church  as  we  drive  on  past 
"  Trinity,"  down  the  beautiful  State  Road  which 
leads  over  four  miles  of  macadam  to  Lee,  we 
pass  on  the  left  next  to  "  Lenox  Club "  the 
cottage  of  Mrs.  William  C.  Wharton,  "  Pine 
Acre,"  and  still  on  beyond  "  Wynnstay,"  the 
property  of  Mrs.  John  Struthers.  "  Bel  Air," 
next  on  the  left  and  occupied  for  some  years 
by  Thatcher  M.  Adams,  Esq.,  goes  with  the 
Morgan  estate  opposite,  "  Ventfort  Hall,"  of 
which  it  is  a  part.  ''Ventfort  Hall"  villa  is 
an  Elizabethan  architectural  unity,  as  "Wynd- 
hurst"  is  Tudor,  and  u  Bellefontaine,"  French, 
the  last  being  modelled  after  the  Petit  Trianon. 
Domestic  architecture  that  embodies  some  one 
central  idea  is  always  pleasing,  and  "  Ventfort 
Hall "  has  the  advantage  of  crowning  one  of  the 
oldest  estates  in  Lenox,  the  Haggerty  place  ; 
hence  the  avenues  and  trees  have  the  dignity  of 
age.  Next  beyond  the  estate  of  Mr.  Morgan  is 
the  property  of  Mr.  Schermerhorn,  which  ex- 
tends from  here  two  miles  to  the  east  and 
embraces  many  hundred  acres.  On  the  left,  op- 
posite, are  "  Sunnybank,"  owned  by  Mrs.  Fran- 
cis C.  Barlow,  and  just  beyond  "  Thistledown," 
the  property  of  David  Lydig,  Esq.  Passing 


200  Lenox 

"  Thistledown,"  the  road  turns  abruptly  to  the 
right,  and  a  mile  farther  on  we  reach  five  large 
estates.  Immediately  bounding  Mr.  Scher- 
merhorn  on  the  south  is  the  hundred  and  fifty 
acre  tract  of  Giraud  Foster,  Esq.,  while  oppo- 
site this  property  on  the  left  we  are  passing 
the  estate  of  Mr.  John  S.  Barnes,  "  Cold- 
brooke,"  beyond  which  we  come  to  "  Wynd- 
hurst,"  the  very  extensive  property  of  John 
Sloane,  Esq.  Mr.  Sloane's  property  lies  on 
both  sides  of  the  road,  and  the  handsome  villa 
in  yellow  pressed  brick  stands  conspicuously 
to  the  left  on  high  ground.  On  the  next  "  four 
corners,"  two  miles  from  the  village  of  Lenox, 
three  estates  meet,  "Wyndhurst,"  occupying 
two,  and  the  properties  of  Mr.  R.  W.  Paterson 
and  Miss  Sargent  the  other  two.  The  Pat- 
erson place  is,  also,  another  one  of  the  old 
estates  of  Lenox  (the  old  Dorr  place)  ;  and  on 
the  opposite  corner  looks  off  the  modest  cot- 
tage of  Miss  G.  Sargent  on  the  charming 
Laurel  Lake  in  the  near  foreground. 

We  turn  here  and  pursue  our  way  along  this 
northern  side  of  the  little  lake,  and  are  soon 
passing  the  estates  of  the  late  Robert  and 
Ogden  Goelet,  Esqs.,  Robert  W.  Chapin,  Esq., 
Mrs.  John  Struthers,  and  Edward  R.  Whar- 
ton,  Esq.  It  is  a  drive  of  a  mile  from  Miss 


Modern  Lenox  201 

Sargent's  cottage  to  the  Wharton  villa,  and 
here  we  turn  towards  the  village  once  more 
along  Kemble  Street,  passing  on  the  left  "  In- 
terlaken,"  "  Maplehurst,"  and  ''The  Perch," 
the  latter  once  the  home  of  Fanny  Kem- 
ble, and  on  the  right  the  stately  villa  in 
white  marble,  "  Bellefontaine,"  belonging  to 
Giraud  Foster,  Esq.  The  property  through 
this  section,  as  indeed  we  might  say  through- 
out the  whole  of  Lenox,  is  simply  one  of  large 
contiguous  estates.  Hereabouts  the  little 
Laurel  Lake  forms  part  of  the  picture,  with 
the  long  white  chalk-line  made  by  the  Lee 
village  church  spire  against  the  mountains ; 
everywhere  the  rim  of  mountains  ;  everywhere 
at  night  the  brilliantly  illuminated  mansions 
thickly  sown  ;  everywhere  beauty  and  restful- 
ness.  Passing  the  Foster  estate  we  are  soon 
ascending  the  hill,  leaving  on  the  left  "  Clipston 
Grange,"  owned  by  Frank  K.  Sturgis,  Esq., 
and  "  Sunnycroft  "  just  beyond,  on  the  same 
side,  the  property  of  George  G.  Haven,  Esq. 
On  the  right  the  hedge  half  conceals  the  pala- 
tial "Ventfort  Hall,"  and  here  we  have  at 
length  reached  "  Trinity  "  once  more  just  as 
the  melodious  chimes  are  vying  with  the  syl- 
van minstrels  to  usher  in  the  evening's  peace. 
Opposite  the  church  the  "  Frelinghuysen 


202  Lenox 

cottage "  stands  with  its  rigid  lines  against 
the  sunset  and  far  off  on  Bald  Head  the 
observer  would  see  it  now  o'ertopping  like  a 
house  of  gold  the  crest  on  which  we  are  stand- 
ing. Between  it  and  "  Sunnycroft  "  which  we 
have  just  passed  stands,  among  some  pines,  a 
house  modest  and  old-fashioned  enough  to 
shrink  from  comparison  with  the  modern  villas 
about  it,  yet  possessing  the  dignity  and  inter- 
est with  which  the  memories  of  Catherine 
Sedgwick  invest  it.  Here  on  this  old  Sedg- 
wick  property  was  Mrs.  Charles  Sedgwick's 
school  for  girls,  and  here  in  the  half-hidden 
house  through  the  trees  was  the  residence  for 
many  summers  of  the  gifted  and  voluminous 
author  of  stories  which  between  1822  and 
1858  captivated  the  reading  world  on  both 
sides  of  the  Atlantic  :  Kate  Sedgwick,  whom 
Donald  G.  Mitchell  in  his  American  Lands 
and  Letters  has  styled  "  the  charming  old  lady 
of  the  Berkshire  highlands." 

We  have  returned  again,  passing  on  the  left 
as  we  turned  into  Walker  Street  the  fine  old 
colonial  cottage  of  the  late  Judge  Julius  Rock- 
well, to  Monument  Square  and  the  Curtis 
Hotel.  A  hostelry  on  this  very  spot  has  dis- 
pensed hospitality  for  a  hundred  years,  with  a 
noteworthy  succession  of  landlords  during  the 


Modern  Lenox  203 

century,  each  having  a  long  tenure  of  service. 
The  present  proprietor,  Mr.  Wm.  D.  Curtis, 
succeeded  his  father,  William  O.  Curtis,  in 
1894.  Through  the  proprietorship  of  father 
and  son  extending  over  a  period  of  fifty  years, 
this  hotel  has  maintained  and  greatly  added  to 
the  high  prestige  it  enjoyed  in  the  earlier  days, 
and  now  its  later  glory  outshines  all  its  pre- 
vious rivals  on  this  same  site.  Its  registers 
reaching  back  only  through  its  present  man- 
agement would  be  valuable  to  autograph  col- 
lectors, such  names  appearing  here  as  those  of 
Longfellow,  Charles  Sumner,  O.  B.  Frothing- 
ham,  Chester  A.  Arthur,  John  A.  Andrew, 
Alfred  Bierstadt,  John  A.  Dix,  George  Mc- 
Clellan,  Wm.  T.  Sherman,  the  Duke  of  Marl- 
borough,  besides  those  of  ambassadors  from 
all  foreign  courts,  leaders  in  finance  and  social 
circles  here  and  abroad,  and  many,  many  others 
equally  distinguished  in  all  walks  of  life.  To- 
day this  famous  hostelry  with  its  architectural 
simplicity,  its  homelike  interior,  its  etchings, 
its  afternoon  teas,  its  large  and  fashionable 
patronage,  seems  to  have  but  entered  into  the 
realization  of  the  promise  of  its  humbler  pred- 
ecessors, before  whose  doors  the  Hudson  and 
Pittsfield  stage  with  a  winding  of  the  horn,  and 
a  crack  of  the  whip,  and  a  circular  sweep  of 


204  Lenox 

narrow  dimensions  used  to  regularly  but  some- 
what dramatically  and  perilously  deposit  its 
load  of  passengers.  Verily  the  very  ground 
on  which  Curtis's  stands  to-day  in  its  simple 
magnificence  seems  a  palimpsest,  from  which 
the  earlier  record  will  not  be  rubbed  out. 

The  valuation  of  Lenox  twenty  years  ago 
was  a  little  over  a  million  of  dollars ;  in  1883, 
$1,599,411;  and  in  1900,  $3,75°»OO4»  a  phe- 
nomenal increase.  With  all  this  appreciation 
in  property,  due  to  the  building  here  of  great 
estates,  has  been  going  on  a  steady  increase 
in  population.  The  sturdy  farmers  of  other 
days  have  been  replaced  by  those  who,  as 
superintendents,  gardeners,  and  care-takers  of 
these  vast  properties,  have  made  the  flood-tide 
stronger  than  the  ebb,  and  Lenox  has  thus 
been  saved  from  the  depopulation  which  has 
visited  other  Berkshire  towns.  The  popula- 
tion of  Lenox  in  1800  was  1041  ;  to-day  it  is 
not  far  from  3000.  It  was  not  till  twenty 
years  ago  that  the  2000  mark  was  reached, 
and  though  the  original  Yankee  element  has, 
during  these  last  twenty  years,  disappeared  as 
never  before,  Lenox  has  added  in  that  time  as 
many  to  the  population  as  in  the  eighty  years 
preceding.  The  business  conditions  in  Lenox 
are  such  as  obtain  in  a  "  resort."  Great  in- 


Modern  Lenox  205 

dustries  that  once  turned  out  here  manufac- 
tures of  iron,  glass,  tin  and  willow  ware  are 
dead  and  well-nigh  forgotten.  One  industry, 
that  of  the  manufacture  of  glass,  gasped  its  last 
expiring  breath  within  twenty  years,  but  its 
history  reaches  back  many  years.  Indeed  far 
back  in  the  eighteenth  century,  the  General 
Court  made  a  grant  of  1 500  acres  in  Berkshire 
to  Mr.  John  Franklin  and  others,  for  the  pur- 
pose of  promoting  glass-making  at  German- 
town,  near  Boston.  This  is  known  as  the 
"  Glass  Works  Grant,"  and  was  confirmed  by 
buying  the  right  of  the  Indians  in  1757  for 
^28  IQS.  It  was  located  south  of  Lenox  Fur- 
nace, and  just  east  of  the  "  Ministers'  Grant " 
referred  to  in  an  earlier  chapter.  Glass  was 
made  at  Lenox  Furnace  for  years.  Its  budget 
of  business,  the  making  of  plate-glass,  bottles, 
etc.,  is  a  frequent  item  in  the  files  of  the 
county  press,  and  specimens  of  its  work  may 
be  seen  in  the  patent  office,  Washington,  D.C. 
The  "  Iron  Works"  went  out  of  business  some 
years  before  the  manufacture  of  glass  stopped, 
but  its  subterranean  galleries  and  corridors 
actually  honeycombed  a  section  of  the  village 
on  Main  Street,  so  that  on  November  27, 
1862,  a  house  standing  on  one  of  the  streets 
fell  through  the  crust  and  was  buried  up  to 


206  Lenox 

the  second  story.  Modern  industrial  condi- 
tions, combined  with  the  peculiar  forces  which 
were  at  work  to  make  Lenox  a  place  of  resort, 
the  removal  of  the  courts  in  1869,  the  prox- 
imity of  a  city  on  the  north  (Pittsfield,  25,000 
population),  and  the  coming  of  the  trolley 
have  at  times  affected  the  local  business,  yet 
the  tax  budget  was  never  so  large,  and  the  im- 
provements which  the  town  has  been  able  to 
have  in  recent  years,  through  the  presence 
here  of  a  wealthy  class,  have  made  it  privi- 
leged far  beyond  other  towns  with  great  mu- 
nicipal blessings :  a  perfect  sewer  system, 
water  and  electric-lighting,  fine  roads,  good 
schools,  a  splendidly  equipped  library,  and  the 
Town  Hall,  which  has  been  built  this  year 
(1902)  at  an  expense,  with  the  land  on  which 
it  stands,  of  $80,000. 

Such  then  is  modern  Lenox  :  beautiful  for 
situation,  imposing  and  impressive  in  its  many 
palatial  villas,  and  the  park-like  estates  adjoin- 
ing. It  can  be  compared  with  so  few  places 
of  its  class  that  its  rank  and  charm  and  fame 
have  conspired  to  give  it  the  name,  among 
those  who  are  its  rapt  lovers,  "Lenox,  the 
only'' 


VI 

THE   VICINAGE 

FROM    GREYLOCK    TO    THE    TAGHCONIC    DOME    ON 
THE    WHEEL 

THE  "  Berkshires  "  are  the  foot-hills  of  the 
Green  Mountains,  which  fork  at  the  north- 
ern end  of  the  county,  and,  running  down  its 
sides  in  parallel  ranges, —  the  Hoosac  and 
the  Taghconic,  —  make  its  eastern  and  west- 
ern boundaries.  Greylock,  thirty-five  hundred 
feet,  commands  the  northern  approach  and 
salutes  the  rising  morn  on  Monadnock  and 
"  Tom "  far  away ;  and  the  Dome,  twenty- 
eight  hundred  feet,  stands  sentinel  at  the 
south.  It  is  a  country  as  prodigal  of  land- 
scapes as  of  bracing  air.  Through  the  very 
heart  of  it  winds  the  Housatonic,  deflected 
often  to  a  right  angle  by  some  mountain  bar- 
rier as  it  makes  its  way  to  the  sea,  ever 
deepening,  ever  broadening,  turning  the  myriad 

207 


208  Lenox 

wheels  of  many  industries,  placid  in  the  mead- 
ows, troubled  near  the  towns. 

One  may  moralize,  dream,  aspire,  rest  in 
such  a  country,  but  the  heresy  obtains  that 
one  may  not  ride  the  bicycle  there.  Canoeists 
have  paddled  its  river  with  many  portages, 
and  bicyclists  have  coasted  its  hills  which  they 
have  climbed  with  many  dismounts  and  trun- 
dlings.  But  is  there  no  compensation  to  the 
wheelman  in  the  picturesque  landscapes  and 
exhilarating  "coasts,"  in  the  pure  mountain 
air  and  restful  wayside  inns  ?  And  where 
such  views,  such  "  coasts,"  such  tonic  in  the 
air,  such  fine  roads,  and  such  ideal  inns  as  in 
Berkshire!  Is  there  no  compensation  in  visit- 
ing a  section  of  country  rich  in  historical 
and  literary  associations,  studying  its  folk  and 
customs,  viewing  its  fine  estates  and  villas  ? 
And  where  such  gratification  as  in  Berkshire! 

Bicyclists,  so  far  as  Berkshire  is  concerned, 
may  be  divided  into  two  classes  :  the  sacred  and 
the  profane  ;  the  first-named  being  those  who 
are  in  rapt  oneness  with  the  loveliness  and  the 
traditions  of  the  region  ;  the  latter,  those  who 
worship  their  wheels,  are  oblivious  to  scenic 
beauty,  and  are  attracted  hither  only  to  see 
fine  estates.  I  was  standing  one  day  at  a 
bend  in  the  road  where  all  of  a  sudden  a  burst 


The  Vicinage  209 

of  entrancing  landscape  opens  out  to  the  be- 
holder, and  then  is  partly  screened  from  view 
by  two  rows  of  trees  so  placed  that  what  part 
of  the  scenery  one  does  n't  shut  out  the  other 
will,  when  along  came  a  party  of  bicyclists 
riding  for  dear  life.  The  leader,  who  was 
familiar  with  the  region,  shouted,  as  they 
passed  —  or  rather  fairly  whizzed  —  out  of 
sight :  "  Now,  boys,  keep  your  eyes  peeled. 
This  is  the  finest  scenery  in  Berkshire  County! " 
And  then  a  cloud  of  dust  hid  them  from  view, 
and  I  was  left  with  the  charming  vision  blurred 
by  man's  inappreciation. 

A  wheelman  in  a  hill-country  should  always 
pursue  the  general  tenor  of  his  way  with  the 
view  before  him  rather  than  behind  his  back, 
and  consequently  Berkshire  should  be  traversed 
from  north  to  south.  We  will  enter  it  through 
the  Hoosac  Tunnel, —  that  colossal  feat  in  en- 
gineering,—  at  the  northeastern  end  of  the 
county.  The  tunnel  is  four  and  three  quarters 
miles  long  (next  to  the  longest  in  the  world) 
and  was  finished  in  1874,  after  nineteen  years 
of  toilsome  labor,  the  loss  of  136  lives,  and  an 
expenditure  of  $12,0x30,000,  for  which  the 
State  gave  its  credit.  We  emerge  from  the 
tunnel  directly  upon  the  beautiful  manufac- 
turing city  of  North  Adams,  the  largest  city 


210  Lenox 

in  Berkshire  County ;  city  of  prints  and  shoes 
and  many  industries  ;  home  of  the  State  Nor- 
mal School ;  a  thriving  and  attractive  urbs  in 
rure,  right  at  the  foot  of  Greylock.  A  day 
must  be  taken  to  make  the  ascent  of  the 
mountain,  and  though  there  are  carriages  in 
waiting  to  take  you  to  its  summit,  we  push  on 
down  the  valley  road  to  the  smart  manufac- 
turing town  of  Adams,  made  notable  by  the 
stay  of  President  McKinley  during  a  week  he 
spent  in  the  Berkshires  the  summer  after  his 
first  inauguration.  Leaving  our  wheels  and 
liberally  provisioning  ourselves  against  the 
sure  access  of  fierce  hunger  awaiting  us  on 
the  peak  of  Greylock,  where  the  means  of 
gratifying  the  inner  man  have  until  recently 
been  limited  by  what  you  carry,  we  eagerly 
enter  upon  the  laborious  ascent.  It  is  a 
rough  and  tortuous  climb  of  four  hours,  allow- 
ing for  rests  by  the  way,  following  now  a 
wood-road,  now  the  dry  bed  of  a  mountain 
brook,  now  a  somewhat  uncertain  opening 
through  the  forest,  over  logs  and  boulders,  up 
steep  inclines,  tilted  to  nearly  forty  per  cent., 
on  and  on  with  many  rests  until  the  top  is 
reached,  a  weary  climb  of  five  miles,  taxing 
every  atom  of  strength  and  endurance,  but 
more  than  compensated  for  in  the  grandeur 


o 
I 

o 


The  Vicinage  211 

of  the  prospect  when  once  we  stand  upon  the 
summit  and  scale  the  last  staircase  of  the 
skeleton  tower  which  rises  there  sixty  feet. 

Berkshire  lies  beneath  us,  its  lakes  seeming 
like  silver  maple  leaves  fallen  to  the  ground, 
its  heights  stunted;  and  immediately  below  us 
are  the  towns  we  have  left,  with  their  busy 
looms  too  far  away  to  hear,  and  farther  around 
at  the  base  of  the  opposite  slope,  Williams- 
town,  whose  far-famed  college  and  classic  re- 
treats await  us  on  the  morrow.  Far  away  to 
the  north,  and  reflecting  a  slanting  ray  of  the 
sun,  the  Bennington  monument  catches  the 
eye  against  the  blue  background  of  the  Ver- 
mont hills,  out  of  which  rise  individual  peaks ; 
to  the  east,  over  the  Hoosacs,  appears  the 
observatory-capped  summit  of  Mount  Tom  ; 
southward  stretches  Berkshire,  while  in  the 
west  appears  a  faint  streak  of  silver,  the 
mighty  Hudson,  and  beyond,  making  a  saw- 
toothed  sky-line,  the  jagged  chain  of  the 
Catskills.  It  is  a  good  introduction  to  a 
Berkshire  trip,  wedged,  as  the  country  is,  into 
three  States,  Vermont,  Connecticut,  and  New 
York ;  and  gives  us  a  sort  of  bird's-eye  view  of 
the  country  we  are  to  cover.  Let  us  say  in- 
cidentally as  we  descend  to  our  bicycles  in 
Adams,  that  we  shall  see  no  sublimer  thing  in 


212  Lenox 

Berkshire  than  the  prospect  we  have  left ; 
though  many  more  picturesque  bits  of  scenery, 
the  filling  in  of  the  picture  so  vast  and  grand 
on  the  heights  of  Greylock,  charm  and  inspire 
the  wheelman  as  he  rides  from  town  to  town  ; 
now  a  vista  opening  here,  now  a  pastoral  with 
village-spire  in  the  distance,  now  a  mountain 
lake  of  pearl  set  in  its  emerald  enclosure  of 
mountains,  now  a  path  between  the  arching 
elms  along  the  river  side,  now  a  magnificent 
expanse  from  some  hill  he  is  about  to  "  coast," 
now  an  olden  mill  by  the  bridge,  a  deep  fissure 
in  the  rocks,  a  beetling  and  overhanging  cliff, 
now  a  peaceful  dale  where  the  sun  early  sinks 
to  rest,  now  a  neat  trim  farmhouse,  now 
an  abandoned  group  of  buildings  in  the  many 
"deserted  villages"  which  abound  in  the  bor- 
ders of  Berkshire,  and  now  expansive  manors 
with  well-kept  grounds  and  parks  stretching 
away  from  palatial  mansions,  commanding  su- 
perb views  and  arresting  attention  by  the  di- 
versity in  their  architecture. 

It  is  only  a  short  easy  distance  along  a 
macadamized  State  road  from  North  Adams 
to  Williamstown,  so  we  decide  after  wheeling 
in  from  Adams  to  push  on  to  the  college 
town  for  the  night.  It  is  the  week  after  Com- 
mencement, and  the  village  is  bereft  of  its 


The  Vicinage  213 

student-colony,  but  its  hilly  street,  on  either 
side  of  which  are  the  substantial  and  hand- 
some college  buildings,  presents  an  attractive 
prospect,  and  tired  as  we  are,  though  refreshed 
by  supper,  we  set  out  to  stroll  in  the  grounds. 
The  Mecca  of  all  pilgrims  is,  of  course,  the 
"  Haystack  Monument,"  erected  to  perpetuate 
the  memory  of  those  valiant  youths  who  here 
gave  themselves  to  Christian  work  in  foreign 
lands  ;  and  with  the  thought  in  our  minds  that 
the  movement  of  foreign  missions  in  America 
was  born  on  Berkshire  soil,  we  return  to  the 
inn  and  to  the  dreamless  sleep  of  the  wheel- 
man. 

Williams  College  cannot  be  written  about 
in  a  paragraph.  It  has  passed  its  century 
mark ;  its  graduates  are  in  all  lands,  doing 
efficient  service  ;  its  standards  and  results  place 
it  in  the  first  rank  of  American  colleges  ;  its 
condition  is  always  prosperous  and  progres- 
sive, its  location  is  perfectly  entrancing ;  and 
after  another  look  about  the  buildings  —  and 
into  them  so  far  as  we  can — we  turn  our 
faces  southward.  It  is  a  run  of  five  miles  to 
South  Williamstown  along  the  side  of  Grey- 
lock,  and  over  a  level  piece  of  road,  but 
thence  on  through  the  adjoining  town  of  New 
Ashford  to  Lanesborough  the  grade  is  up, 


2i4  Lenox 

with  many  dismounts,  but  with  ever-increasing 
loveliness  of  scenery  as  the  higher  levels  are 
reached.  The  country  through  here  is  not 
yet  pre-empted  by  the  summer  resident,  and 
land  is  almost  given  away.  Land  which  sells 
in  Lenox  at  prices  ranging  from  $1000  to 
$20,000  per  acre  sells  in  some  parts  of  the 
county  at  from  one  dollar  to  four  dollars  per 
acre!  Almost  one  whole  township  in  Berk- 
shire has  been  bought  by  a  well-known  citizen 
of  New  York,  at  less  than  an  average  price  of 
five  dollars  an  acre!  Lanesborough,  through 
which  we  are  now  wheeling,  and  where  we  are 
shown  the  birthplace  of  Josh  Billings,  is  one 
of  these  decadent  towns,  and  yet  only  four 
miles  from  the  city  of  Pittsfield,  the  county 
seat.  On  we  push  past  placid  Pontoosuc 
Lake,  known  to  the  Indians  as  Skoon-keek- 
moon-keek,  and  Pittsfield  is  soon  reached.  A 
morning's  work  has  been  accomplished,  and 
after  dinner  we  are  at  liberty  to  look  around 
the  city. 

Pittsfield  is  a  distributing  centre  for  miles 

o 

around.  It  is  six  miles  north  of  the  geograph- 
ical centre  of  the  country,  but  it  stole  the 
courts  and  county  seat  away  from  Lenox, 
thirty  years  ago,  after  trying  in  vain  for 
fifty  years  before  success  crowned  its  efforts. 


The  Haystack  Monument  at  Williams  College, 
marking  the  birthplace  of  American  Foreign  Missions, 
Williams  town,  Mass. 


The  Vicinage  215 

Every  one  is  glad  now  that  Lenox  is  rid  of 
the  incubus  of  court-week,  county  jails,  and 
hangings,  and  Pittsfield  can  take  care  of  all 
that  with  no  perceptible  disturbance  on  the 
surface  of  its  life.  It  is  a  beautiful  city,  with 
handsome  edifices  and  residences,  many  in- 
dustries, and  dominated  by  a  spirit  of  culture 
and  refinement  such  as  few  cities  possess. 
We  wheel  out  to  Dalton,  four  miles  away,  a 
beautiful  manufacturing  village,  connected  with 
Pittsfield  by  trolley,  the  seat  of  the  paper-mills 
which  furnish  bank-note  paper  to  the  United 
States  Government,  and  the  home  of  the 
present  Governor  of  the  State,  W.  Murray 
Crane;  and  then  we  wheel  to  Lenox,  skirting 
Pittsfield  on  the  east  in  order  that  we  may 
pass  through  that  section  justly  noteworthy 
on  account  of  its  being  for  seven  years  the 
home  of  the  humorist  and  poet  Dr.  Holmes. 
We  reach  Lenox,  twelve  miles  from  Dalton, 
in  the  evening,  having  covered  in  the  day's 
wheeling  about  forty  miles  ;  and,  as  we  wheel 
up  to  the  Curtis  Hotel,  the  village  band, 
under  the  electric  lights,  is  giving  its  regular 
out-of-doors  concert,  the  piazzas  of  the  hotel 
swarming  with  guests  in  dinner  dress,  and  the 
streets  filled  with  people  and  equipages. 

To  reach  this  point  of  our  journey  it  has 


216  Lenox 

been  a  gradual  climb  all  the  way  from  Williams- 
town  ;  henceforth  there  will  be  nothing  but  a 
steady  descent,  even  when  we  cross  Monu- 
ment, whose  approach  on  the  Stockbridge 
side  is  an  easy  rise,  but  whose  southern  slope 
towards  Great  Barrington  is  a  "  coast  "  straight 
down  of  over  a  mile.  From  Lenox  to  Stock- 
bridge  there  are  many  ways  to  go  ;  all  beauti- 
ful enough,  but  one  surpassingly  so,  viz.,  the 
road  that  leads  by  Stockbridge  Bowl  past 
the  Hawthorne  site,  and  thence  on  into  the 
village-on-the-plain  by  the  heights  where  stand 
the  residences  of  Mr.  Choate,  our  Minister  to 
England,  Dr.  Henry  M.  Field,  and  others. 
It  is  worth  the  while  of  the  wheelman,  how- 
ever, before  leaving  Lenox,  to  see  its  beauti- 
ful places,  whose  superintendents  are  trained 
English  gardeners  for  the  most  part.  These 
grounds  need  not  be  entered  to  see  them,  as 
they  lie  on  slopes  easily  seen  from  the  high- 
way. The  villas  themselves  are  conspicuous, 
and  may  be  viewed  at  a  distance.  They 
crown  the  crests  and  swells  in  the  land ;  their 
velvety  lawns  are  on  the  slopes  and  terraces ; 
and  the  great  desideratum  of  a  country-seat 
hereabouts  being  a  "  view,"  the  house  is  always 
on  a  knoll  or  spur,  so  that  the  wheelman  can 
take  it  in  as  he  passes  along  the  highway. 


The  Vicinage  217 

It  may  not  be  amiss  to  say  to  the  wheelman, 
en  passant,  that  in  going  from  town  to  town 
it  is  well  not  to  be  too  slavishly  tied  to  the 
Road-book  issued  under  the  authority  of  some 
State  association  of  bicyclists,  whose  study 
is  often  a  matter  of  levels  rather  than  of 
landscapes.  In  the  temple  of  Berkshire  love- 
liness no  foot  is  profane  but  that  of  him  who 
hurries  through  her  courts.  Her  symphonies 
fall  upon  deaf  ears,  her  visions  waste  their 
prodigal  beauty  on  sightless  eyes,  unless  one 
stops  to  admire,  and  stopping,  finds  his 
admiration  turn  to  aspiration.  If  bicycling 
is  a  matter  of  levels  in  such  a  country,  then 
Niagara  is  only  so  much  horse-power,  and 
all  sentiment  valuable  only  as  a  marketable 
asset.  I  have  actually  seen  many  bicyclists 
avoid  the  hilly  road  with  its  transporting 
apocalypses.  The  Road-book  says :  "  From 
Lenox  to  Stockbridge  go  through  Curtis- 
ville"  (now  Interlaken).  We  do  not.  Leav- 
ing Curtisville  on  the  right,  we  wheel  into 
Stockbridge  over  Field  hill  and  then  on 
through  the  charming  village  under  the  high 
and  white-faced  crags  of  Monument,  which 
we  ride  without  a  trundle,  though  perhaps 
a  little  out  of  breath  when  we  reach  the 
highest  point  of  the  pass  over  the  mountain's 


2i8  Lenox 

eastern  slope.  A  sign,  "  Wheelmen  ;  Danger- 
ous ! "  informs  us  that  other  wheelmen  have 
been  lured  to  these  heights  ;  indeed,  one  was 
killed  here  last  summer. 

We  decide  to  leave  our  wheels  in  the  thick 
forest-growth  everywhere  about  us,  save  where 
a  vista  in  front  reveals  the  height  to  which  we 
have  climbed,  and  to  make  the  ascent  of  this 
far-famed  mountain  immortalized  by  Bryant. 
A  little  foot-path  marks  the  way  to  the  sum- 
mit, and  soon  we  are  sitting  in  the  "  Devil's 
Pulpit,"  with  the  entrancing  landscape  at  our 
feet :  in  the  north  Greylock,  far  up  the  county, 
in  the  south  the  Dome,  whither  we  are  tend- 
ing ;  off  to  the  far  west  the  ragged  and  grace- 
ful Catskills  (graceful  in  their  raggedness)  ; 
below  us  the  winding  Housatonic  and  the 
manufacturing  village  called  by  the  name  of 
the  river, —  the  only  town  in  the  county 
to  preserve  the  Indian  nomenclature, — and 
everywhere  the  pastoral  beauty  of  field,  and 
farm,  and  meadow,  stretching  forth  to  the 
bases  of  the  distant  Taghconics.  It  is  a  charm- 
ing by-path  excursion,  and  we  are  all  the  more 
ready,  returning  to  our  wheels,  for  the  "coast" 
down  Monument  into  Great  Barrington,  four 
miles  away. 

Great  Barrington  invites  a  rest  after  a  good 


The  Vicinage  219 

morning's  work.  The  inn  where  we  stop  is 
filled  with  summer  boarders  and  the  heights 
around  us  are  crowned  with  country-seats.  It 
is  the  "  season "  in  Great  Barrington,  while 
that  in  Lenox  begins  in  May  and  ends  in 
November,  reaching  its  greatest  intensity  in 
September.  The  fame  of  the  lesser  of  these 
resorts  is  much  enhanced  by  its  having  been 
for  a  few  years  the  home  of  William  Cullen 
Bryant.  A  truly  palatial  castle  is  also  here, 
with  atrium  of  African  marbles  and  doors 
from  Windsor  and  walls  hung  with  master- 
pieces of  modern  art.  It  is  all  very  beautiful 
from  the  piazzas  of  the  opposite  inn,  but  re- 
freshed we  push  on  to  Sheffield,  six  miles  over 
a  perfectly  level  road  of  ideal  hardness.  It  is 
swift  and  constant  pedalling  unbroken  by  dis- 
mount or  "  coast."  We  have  now  reached  the 
southern  end  of  the  county  and  have  been 
having  on  our  right  for  some  time  the  near 
view  of  the  Dome,  called  by  the  people  who 
live  in  this  region  "  Mount  Everett."  Sheffield 
enjoys  the  distinction  of  being  the  oldest  of 
the  Berkshire  towns.  It  has  been  the  birth- 
place of  some  notable  men  :  Dr.  Orville  Dewey, 
the  distinguished  Unitarian  divine  of  the 
last  century,  President  Barnard  of  Columbia, 
Mr.  George  F.  Root,  the  well-known  musical 


220  Lenox 

composer,  and  others.  The  chief  attraction 
the  little  village  possesses  is  its  long,  wide 
street  bordered  by  overarching  elms.  We 
have  left  now  the  region  of  the  summer  cot- 
tager for  that  of  the  summer  boarder,  of  which 
latter  genus  there  are  many  lodged  here  and 
there  throughout  the  entire  township.  The 
"  season  "  here  is  very  short,  yet,  by  the  mod- 
ish attire  of  the  "  boarders  "  going  to  and  from 
the  post-office,  resting  lazily  in  the  hammocks, 
or  playing  at  tennis  and  croquet  on  the  lawns, 
we  are  pleasantly  impressed  with  the  social 
standing  of  the  village  among  those  who  seek 
relief  in  the  summer  from  the  heat  of  the  city. 
It  is  a  pedal  of  about  six  miles,  at  the  north- 
ern base  of  Everett,  to  the  little  village  of 
South  Egremont,  and  we  decide  to  wheel 
there  for  supper  and  the  night's  lodging.  The 
sole  attraction  here,  aside  from  those  beauties 
of  landscape  with  which  the  whole  Berkshire 
region  abounds,  is  the  inn.  It  is  filled  with 
guests,  some  being  "  colonized "  out  of  the 
house.  We  are  now,  at  South  Egremont,  only 
four  miles  from  Great  Barrington  and  not 
much  farther  from  the  New  York  line :  way 
down  in  the  extreme  southwestern  corner  of 
the  State  of  Massachusetts.  Did  you  ever  no- 
tice the  jog  in  the  southern  end  of  that  divis- 


The  Vicinage  221 

ional  line  between  Massachusetts  and  New 
York  ?  It  would  take  volumes  to  tell  the 
story  of  the  running  of  that  dividing  line, 
which  was  finally  determined  by  a  Federal 
commission.  Its  course  was  a  slant  from  south- 
west to  northeast  at  a  pretty  nearly  uniform 
distance  of  twenty  miles  from  the  Hudson 
River.  At  any  rate  here  we  are  at  the  south- 
ern point  of  that  line,  the  "old  corner"  or  jog 
as  it  looks  on  the  map.  On  the  morrow  we 
make  the  ascent  of  Mount  Everett,  and  survey 
the  country  over  which  we  have  come, — 
rightly  compared  to  Switzerland.  Far  in  the 
distance  rises  Greylock  in  the  form  of  a 
colossal  saddle.  Monument,  Rattlesnake, 
Tom  Ball,  Perry's  Peak,  Bald  Head,  and 
the  Lenox  heights  are  in  between.  It  has 
taken  four  days  to  see  the  Berkshires  by  our 
leisurely  itinerary,  and  when  we  part  on  the 
summit  of  Everett,  two  of  our  party  descend 
into  Connecticut  by  way  of  the  Salisburys, 
two  take  the  New  York  side,  descending  by 
way  of  Bash-Bish  Falls, — a  beautiful  cascade 
over  the  precipitous  cliffs  of  Everett,  falling 
for  more  than  a  hundred  feet, — while  I  retrace 
my  way  to  Lenox. 

Berkshire  then  is  the  cycler's  paradise.     Its 
hills,  if  a  little  difficult  to  climb,  are  fine  to 


222  Lenox 

coast ;  its  roads  are  always  in  prime  order ;  its 
views  fascinate  ;  its  air  exhilarates  ;  its  history 
stimulates ;  and  its  ideal  hostelries  are  no 
small  part  of  the  charm  of  the  region.  A  flat 
country  makes  constant  pedalling,  and  the 
horizon  hems  one  in  so  that  the  eye  is  given 
nothing  to  do.  In  Berkshire,  the  landscapes 
and  the  "  coasts  "  repay  all  the  climbing,  and  if 
one  will  not  slavishly  follow  the  itinerary  of 
the  Road-book,  he  will  fasten  upon  his  mind  an 
ineffaceable  picture  of  loveliness. 

PITTSFIELD,  THE  HEART  OF  BERKSHIRE 

Industrially  and  socially  Pittsfield  is  the 
heart  of  the  Berkshire  region.  Though  on 
high  ground  itself  the  city  lies  in  a  slight 
depression  among  the  hills,  the  grade  out  of 
it  on  the  east  being  nearly  two  per  cent., 
along  the  railway,  and  on  the  south  by  the 
carriage  road  leading  to  Lenox,  six  miles 
distant,  not  far  from  one  per  cent.  It  was 
doubtless  this  fact,  among  others,  which  in- 
fluenced the  location  of  the  Boston  &  Albany 
Railroad,  which  describes  an  ox-bow  as  it 
crosses  Berkshire.  Pittsfield  in  1800  was 
but  little  larger  than  Sandisfield,  at  the 
far  southeastern  limit  of  the  county  ;  it  pro- 


The  Vicinage  223 

gressed  proportionately  and  normally  during 
the  first  half  of  its  present  existence,  but  with 
the  acquisition  of  the  railroads  in  1840,  and  the 
courts  in  1869,  it  has  shot  way  ahead  of 
all  the  other  towns  of  the  county  but  one, 
changing  to  a  city  charter  in  1889,  and  having 
now  a  population  of  nearly  twenty-five  thou- 
sand and  a  valuation  of  $16,000,000.  It  is 
to-day  the  very  heart  of  Berkshire  mercantile 
life,  though  this  by  no  means  implies  that 
there  are  not  in  other  parts  of  the  county 
great  and  profitable  industries  ;  indeed,  North 
Adams,  Adams,  Dalton,  and  Housatonic  are 
factory  towns  (the  first-named  a  prosperous 
city  itself  and  larger  than  Pittsfield,  with  large 
outputs).  Still,  Pittsfield  with  its  electrical, 
woollen,  and  other  industries,  its  stores,  its 
dignity  as  the  county  seat,  and  its  location 
on  the  great  highways  of  railroad  traffic  is 
facile  princeps  among  smart  Berkshire  towns 
and  one  of  the  most  attractive  cities  in  the 
whole  of  New  England.  Two  beautiful  lakes, 
a  fascinating  environment  of  hills  with  Grey- 
lock  lifting  its  saddle-back  against  the  northern 
sky,  a  mountain  atmosphere,  impart  to  this 
city  all  the  necessary  essentials  for  a  "  resort  "  ; 
and  Pittsfield  does  annually  entertain  hosts 
of  summer  visitors.  Its  air  is  as  bracing  as 


224  Lenox 

any  of  the  Berkshire  towns  ;  it  is  easy  to  get 
to  and  get  away  from ;  it  has  the  most  en- 
chanting prospects  and  drives,  less  beautiful 
than  those  of  its  southern  neighbors,  still 
delightful  in  the  prodigality  of  rich  landscapes  ; 
its  facilities  in  the  way  of  stores,  shops,  library, 
churches,  and  society  are  all  that  could  be  de- 
sired ;  its  hotels,  like  all  the  other  inns  of  Berk- 
shire, make  ample  provision  for  the  comfort  of 
summer  guests  ;  and  last,  but  by  no  means 
least,  its  unique  and  homelike  "  House  of 
Mercy,"  with  the  best  of  medical  attendance 
and  an  efficient  school  of  trained  nurses, 
appeals  to  tourists  who  make  provision  for 
the  exigencies  of  illness. 

But  the  purpose  of  this  short  bit  about 
Pittsfield,  as  we  might  say  of  the  whole  of  this 
book,  is  to  make  part  of  the  Berkshire  region 
intelligible  and  enjoyable  to  those  who  are  not 
familiar  with  its  story.  It  is  not  to  write 
history  only  so  far  as  it  explains  the  Berkshire 
picture,  and  this  chief  city  of  the  Berkshires 
could  not  be  understood  without  a  glance 
into  its  past. 

It  becomes  interesting  to  us  at  once  when 
we  know  that  Oliver  Wendell  Holmes  said  : 
"  the  whole  of  the  city  of  Pittsfield,  consisting 
of  a  section  of  land  six  miles  square,  was, 


& 


The  Vicinage  225 

with  the  exception  of  a  thousand  acres,  the 
property  of  my  great-grandfather,  Jacob 
Wendell."  This  ancestor  of  the  humorist 
bought  the  land  of  the  Province  and  the  first 
settlements  were  begun  in  the  years  1749- 
52,  when  (1753)  the  little  frontier  hamlet 
was  known  as  the  township,  or  plantation, 
of  Pontoosuck.  It  was  incorporated  with  its 
present  name,  Pittsfield,  April  21,  1761.  It 
was  the  fifth  town  to  be  incorporated  in  the 
county,  the  others  having  been  in  the  far 
south,  and  there  were  yet  to  be  twelve  before 
the  break  with  the  mother-country.  The  names 
of  all  but  two  of  these  ante-Revolutionary 
towns  in  the  Berkshires  are  English  ;  after- 
wards the  town  nomenclature  is  conspicuously 
patriotic, — "  Hancock,"  "  Adams,"  "  Washing- 
ton," "  Lee,"  "  Dalton,"  "  Otis,"  and  so  on. 
Pittsfield  is  one  of  the  towns  named  before 
the  Revolution  ;  hence  the  name  after  the  Earl 
of  Chatham,  at  that  time  England's  leading 
statesman. 

I  have  already  indicated  briefly  in  other 
places  the  Indian  occupancy  of  this  region 
before  and  during  the  progress  of  the  early 
settlements,  and  I  have  hinted  at  some  of  the 
leading  causes  which  conspired  to  augment 
the  material  prosperity  of  Pittsfield.  The 


226  Lenox 

history  of  the  town  is  the  history  of  the 
Church  until  Congregationalism  was  disestab- 
lished in  1834,  and  so  when  we  think  of  the 
early  period  in  all  the  New  England  towns, 
it  is  the  Church  which  looms  up  big.  More- 
over, as  the  meaning  of  the  word  "  parson  " 
is  simply  our  word  "  person,"  or  the  man  who 
in  \\v$>  person  represents  the  Church,  so  it  may 
be  said  as  the  town  was  the  Church,  so  the 
Church  was  the  parson, —  and  in  this  case 
"  Parson  Allen,"  better  known  as  "  Fighting 
Parson  Allen  "  of  Bennington  fame,  a  graduate 
of  Harvard,  1762,  and  pastor  of  the  First 
Church,  Pittsfield,  1764-1810,  his  only  pastor- 
ate. Two  of  Mr.  Allen's  successors  in  this 
parish  are  as  well  known,  Dr.  Heman 
Humphrey  (1817-23),  called  from  here  to  the 
presidency  of  Amherst  College,  and  Dr.  John 
Todd  (1842-72),  whose  Index  Rerum  and 
Student's  Manual  used  to  be  an  indispensable 
part  of  every  scholar's  outfit ;  but  the  lustre 
of  romantic  and  intense  patriotism,  as  well  as 
the  ardor  of  a  perfervid  Democratic  partisan- 
ship in  the  midst  of  Federal  New  England, 
have  made  "  Parson  Allen  "  one  of  the  most 
interesting  figures  in  all  American  history. 
He  has  been  rightly  styled  a  "  revolutionary 
and  democratic  zealot."  He  went  with  the 


The  Vicinage  227 

Berkshire  troops  to  Bennington  as  chaplain, 
but  he  levelled  his  musket  at  the  foe  with 
a  keen  relish  in  addition  to  his  regular  minis- 
terial duties.  After  the  nation  was  constitu- 
tionally organized  Jefferson  was  his  political 
idol,  whom  all  the  rest  of  the  New  England 
clergy,  with  few  exceptions,  execrated.  The 
First  Church  bell-rope  broke  with  the  violent 
and  exultant  ringing  at  Jefferson's  election  in 
1 80 1.  Dr.  Belknap,  writing  of  his  trip  July  4, 
1794,  from  Pittsfield  to  Northampton,  says  : 

"  Independence  Day.  From  Pittsfield  to  Northamp- 
ton ;  from  Democracy  to  Federalism!  When  we  left 
Pittsfield  great  preparations  were  making  to  observe 
the  day.  The  inhabitants  of  this  and  neighboring  towns 
were  to  meet  to-day  at  Richmond.  When  we  came  to 
Northampton  we  found  that  not  a  bell  had  been  rung  ; 
nor  a  gun  fired,  nor  a  bowl  of  punch  drank  in  that  very 
Federal  town  to  celebrate  the  day."  —  Massachusetts 
Historical  Society  Collections. 

It  is  interesting  to  read  that  although  Parson 
Allen's  intense  make-up  was  behind  all  this 
riotous  political  enthusiasm,  yet  his  sermons 
in  shorthand  were  read  with  "  but  little 
action." 

Pittsfield  had  by  1 794  developed  into  a 
place  of  such  importance  as  to  necessitate 
the  location  here  of  a  post-office,  the  first  in 


228  Lenox 

the  county  having  been  located  at  Stockbridge 
in  1 792  ;  and  the  third,  fourth,  and  fifth  were 
located  respectively  at  Great  Harrington  (i  797), 
Williamstown  (1798),  and  Lenox,  (1800). 
Previous  to  1792,  Springfield  was  the  one 
post-office  for  the  whole  of  Western  Massa- 
chusetts. In  other  chapters  I  have  described 
how  Pittsfield  with  its  newspapers  (continuous 
files  of  some  of  which  may  be  seen  in  the 
Athenseum)  and  with  post-riders  and  stages 
fell  naturally  into  its  position  of  purveyor 
of  news  for  the  whole  Berkshire  region.  It 
was  always  a  trade  centre  ;  and  later  became 
an  educational  centre,  having  at  one  time  the 
Berkshire  Medical  Institution,  established  in 
1822,  and  the  Maplewood  Young  Ladies' 
Institute,  started  in  1841,  both  of  which  in- 
stitutions were  vigorous,  efficient  schools  for 
a  long  time,  but  are  now  defunct,  yet  always 
full  of  pleasant  and  inspiring  memories  to 
their  graduates.  Pittsfield  also  inaugurated 
a  new  era  in  the  interests  of  agriculture  by 
the  formation  in  1807  °f  the  Berkshire  Agri- 
cultural Society,  making  the  annual  exhibition 
a  sort  of  gala-holiday  and  so  setting  a  type 
for  all  similar  societies  for  all  time  to  come. 

If  we  add  to  all  these  claims  to  eminence 
the  great  men  who  have  been  identified  with 


The  Vicinage  229 

the  town  in  one  way  or  another  our  interest 
in  the  Berkshire  city  is  enhanced.  It  is  no 
small  honor  that  it  has  been  the  home  of 
Allen,  Humphrey,  Samuel  Harris,  and  Todd. 
Pittsfield  early  attracted  to  it  Elkanah  Watson, 
the  accomplished  and  versatile  gentleman, 
publicist,  friend  of  Washington,  and  promoter 
of  agricultural  enterprise.  The  Berkshire 
capital  also  vies  with  its  neighbor,  Dalton, 
in  giving  a  Governor  to  the  commonwealth, 
Governor  George  N.  Briggs,  seven  times 
chosen  Governor  of  Massachusetts  (1843- 
50).  It  gave  a  distinguished  Senator  to 
the  United  States  Senate,  Henry  L.  Dawes, 
nomen  clarissime,  and  he  and  his  brilliant 
daughter,  herself  a  woman  of  letters,  are 
residents  in  this  charming  city  in  the  high- 
lands of  Western  Massachusetts.  It  was  the 
home  for  seven  summers  (1849-56)  of  Oliver 
Wendell  Holmes,  who  loved  the  ancestral 
estate  in  the  Berkshires  and  here  three 
of  his  children  were  born.  The  street  on 
which  he  lived  is  known  as  "  Holmes  Road  " 
and  is  full  of  memories  of  the  poet-humorist. 
Pittsfield  was  also  the  home  of  Herman 
Melville,  whose  sea-stories  were  in  their  day 
very  popular  and  still  find  admiring  readers. 
It  is  the  home  to-day  of  a  distinguished 


230  Lenox 

writer  of  present-day  fiction,  William  Stearns 
Davis,  author  of  A  Friend  of  Ctesar,  and  God 
Wills  It.  If  we  scan  the  annals  of  patriotic 
devotion  we  see  beside  many  others  the  names 
of  the  gallant  General  W.  F.  Bartlett,  Colonel 
of  the  49th  Massachusetts  in  the  Civil  War, 
General  Henry  S.  Briggs,  and  Colonel  Henry 
H.  Richardson,  the  latter  still  living.  Indeed, 
where  shall  we  stop  in  the  enumeration  of  the 
great  men  whose  names  are  inseparably  linked 
with  the  county  seat  of  Berkshire  ! 

Pittsfield  has  an  air  of  refinement  and 
culture  befitting  its  pre-eminence.  The  spirit 
of  the  motto  noblesse  oblige  is  always  in  the 
ascendant.  Its  public  buildings  and  private 
residences  are  becoming  more  and  more  stately 
and  handsome  year  by  year.  It  has  a  beauti- 
ful housing  for  its  library  and  art  gallery, 
the  "  Athenaeum,"  built  in  1875  °f  blue  granite. 
It  has  a  round  dozen  of  strong,  efficient 
churches.  It  is  soon  to  have  a  new  art  mu- 
seum, the  munificent  gift  of  Mr.  Zenas  Crane 
of  Dalton.  Trolleys  lead  from  the  city  in  all 
directions.  The  main  streets  of  the  city  cross 
each  other  at  right  angles,  and  are  known  by 
the  rather  unattractive  names  of  the  points 
of  the  compass.  Pontoosuc  Lake,  the  old 
Indian  "  Skoon-keek-moon-keek,"  is  an  out- 


The  Vicinage  231 

ing  place  in  the  summer  months,  with  two 
steamers,  pavilions,  and  cottages.  Excursions 
to  Greylock  are  frequent  by  carriage  drive. 
Dalton  with  the  very  interesting  Wahconah 
Falls  is  five  miles  to  the  east,  Lenox  only 
six  miles  to  the  south,  and  Lebanon  Springs 
past  the  placid  Onota  only  nine  miles  to  the 
west.  One  of  the  old  "  institutions  "  of  Pitts- 
field,  a  beautiful  custom,  still  survives  :  a 
sunrise  prayer-meeting  on  New  Year's  Day, 
when  all  the  citizens  come  together  to  render 
thanks  for  the  blessings  of  the  past  year  and 
to  supplicate  mercies  for  the  year  to  come, 
a  custom  which  has  survived  since  the  pastor- 
ate of  Heman  Humphrey. 

HISTORIC    STOCKBRIDGE 

Have  you  heard  that  old  saw  that  down  in 
Stockbridge  all  the  crickets  chirp  "  Sedgwick ! 
Sedgwick  ! "  ?  Donald  G.  Mitchell  gives  it  a 
classic  setting  in  his  American  Lands  and 
Letters.  It  has  now  passed  into  folk-lore. 
Stockbridge,  the  home,  during  the  latter  part 
of  the  eighteenth  century,  of  the  Hon.  Theo- 
dore Sedgwick,  one  of  the  most  distinguished 
of  our  Massachusetts  statesmen  at  the  time  of 
the  birth  of  the  republic,  was  the  birthplace  of 
his  brilliant  daughter,  Catherine  Maria,  who 


232  Lenox 

reflected  upon  her  native  town,  as  well  as  upon 
Lenox,  the  place  of  her  adopted  residence, 
the  dazzling  glory  of  her  name  in  literature  as 
a  pioneer  in  American  letters.  In  fact,  the 
township  has  never  been  since  those  early  days 
without  a  representative  of  the  Sedgwick  fam- 
ily ;  and  the  adage  about  the  crickets  is  only 
another  way  of  expressing  the  delicate  hom- 
age this  charming  village  pays  to  a  name 
which  gathers  into  itself  the  dignity,  culture, 
and  worth  of  this  old  and  far-famed  town. 

There  is  an  air  of  classic  stateliness  and 
repose  about  Stockbridge.  Its  wide,  elm-bor- 
dered street,  adorned  at  intervals  with  appro- 
priate memorials  in  stone,  and  lined  with 
beautiful  residences,  is  a  perpetuation  of  the 
old  New  England  idea  of  laying  out  towns, 
and  vies  with  the  celebrated  street  in  Old 
Hadley-on-the-Plain.  To  the  north  of  the 
village  rise  rather  abruptly  the  heights  which 
are  crowned  by  magnificent  villas,  and  which, 
overlooking  the  town  and  the  winding  Housa- 
tonic,  which  flows  through  the  heart  of  it, 
catch  the  reflection  of  the  sun  first  on  the 
chalky  cliffs  of  Monument,  which  rises  1640 
feet  in  the  southern  extremity  of  the  town- 
ship. It  is,  indeed,  an  ever-to-be-remeinbered 
view,  the  very  same  as  that  which  Bryant,  who 


The  Vicinage  233 

spent  his  early  years  in  this  region,  has  sketched 
in  his  poem  on  Monument  Mountain  : 

"  •     •     •     the  scene 
Is  lovely  round;  a  beautiful  river  there 
Wanders  amid  the  fresh  and  fertile  meads, 

"  '     *     '     On  each  side 

The  fields  swell  upward  to  the  hills;  beyond, 
Above  the  hills,  in  the  blue  distance,  rise 
The    mountain-columns    with    which    earth    props    up 
heaven." 

Stockbridge  is,  in  a  way,  mortised  into 
Lenox,  the  heights  we  have  described  reced- 
ing back  and  up  into  the  more  commanding 
eminences  of  the  last-named  town,  to  which  it 
is  contiguous,  so  that  a  very  considerable  part 
of  the  summer  residents  who  have  made  for 
themselves  country-seats  in  this  region  actually 
pay  taxes  in  Stockbridge,  but  in  everything 
else  are  identified  with  Lenox.  The  northern 
end  of  the  Stockbridge  township  is  less  than  a 
third  of  a  mile  from  the  Lenox  post-office  ;  in- 
deed, the  first-named  town  pays  to  the  latter 
nearly  two  hundred  dollars  per  annum  for  the 
education  of  children  living  near  Lenox  vil- 
lage. Topographically,  Stockbridge  is  a  rect- 
angle on  a  series  of  terraces,  with  the  tilted 
end,  where  the  villas  are,  in  the  Lenox  heights, 


234  Lenox 

and  the  low  end,  where  the  village  is,  at  the 
base  of  Monument.  It  is  an  old  town,  one 
of  the  very  oldest  in  Berkshire,  and  was  in- 
corporated in  1739,  though  the  Congrega- 
tional church  of  the  village  was  organized  two 
years  earlier,  1737,  when  the  Mohican  Indians, 
the  aborigines  of  the  county,  were  here  col- 
lected and  educated  by  John  Sergeant.  The 
records  of  Stockbridge  are  thus  almost  syn- 
chronous with  the  beginnings  of  the  county 
itself. 

The  history  of  Stockbridge  is  little  more 
than  that  of  an  Indian  town  until  the  out- 
break of  the  Revolution.  The  Indians  were 
docile  and  friendly,  were  ministered  to  succes- 
sively by  John  Sergeant,  Jonathan  Edwards, 
and  Gideon  Hawley,  and  were  removed  in  a 
body  to  a  reservation  in  New  York  in  1 785- 
87.  An  appropriate  monument  —  a  simple 
monolith  of  field-stone  —  has  been  erected  in 
the  village  of  Stockbridge  to  the  memory  of 
these  red  men  ;  not  far  away  is  the  shaft  in 
memory  of  Edwards,  who  was  called  from  his 
pastorate  here  in  1758  to  the  presidency  of 
Princeton  College  ;  while  a  little  farther  down 
the  wide  village  street  was  standing  until  two 
years  ago  the  house  in  which  he  wrote  the 
Freedom  of  the  Will.  It  is  a  pity  that  this 


The  Vicinage  235 

ancient  building  was  not  preserved :  a  price- 
less possession,  which  might  have  been  re- 
moved to  another  part  of  the  village  when  its 
site  was  wanted  for  a  modern  residence.  On 
the  eminence  north  of  the  town  stands  the 
Missionary  Building,  where  the  savages  were 
instructed,  their  education  being  to  a  certain 
extent  industrial,  even  in  that  day  of  religious 
scholasticism  and  catechisms ;  and  in  the  vil- 
lage, near  the  Congregational  church,  stands 
the  Field  Memorial  Tower,  with  chimes,  per- 
petuating the  name  of  one  of  the  best-known 
Stockbridge  pastors,  the  Rev.  David  Dudley 
Field,  D.D.,  and  marking  the  place  where  the 
first  church  edifice  stood. 

But  the  story  of  the  "  Stockbridge  Indians," 
as  they  are  now  called  in  the  asylum  they 
have  found  in  the  far  West,  and  who  never 
numbered  more  than  four  hundred  at  any 
period  of  their  sojourn  in  the  Berkshire  vil- 
lage, is  only  one  element  of  interest  in  this 
historic  town.  What  vivid  pictures  from  the 
olden  days  throng  one's  steps  in  the  quiet  vil- 
lage street  as  he  looks  out  upon  the  stylish 
equipages,  the  golfers  on  their  way  to  and 
from  the  links,  the  groups  of  "  resorters  "  on 
the  piazza,  of  the  "  Red  Lion,"  the  occasional 
bon  vivant  in  white  flannel  negligee!  Here  the 


236  Lenox 

Indians  were  taught,  and  Sergeant  wrought 
his  labor  of  love,  finished  all  too  early  by  his 
untimely  death.  Here  Edwards  "shaped  his 
creed  at  the  forge  of  thought,"  while  over 
Monument  at  frequent  intervals  came  from 
the  adjoining  town  his  friend,  Samuel  Hop- 
kins, who  moulded  into  credal  forms  (so  long 
the  galling  chains  of  the  free  religious  spirit) 
the  theology  of  New  England.  Here  suc- 
ceeded to  the  mighty  Edwards  the  faithful 
Dr.  West,  who  enjoyed  a  pastorate  of  fifty- 
eight  years,  longest  on  record  in  the  county. 
Miss  Sedgwick  has  drawn  him  to  the  life  in 
many  of  her  stories,  just  as  Mrs.  Stowe  has 
Dr.  Hopkins  in  her  Minister s  Wooing.  One 
finds  much  to  love  in  the  amiable  "  little  Dr. 
West,"  "  an  Apollo  in  little,"  as  Catherine 
Sedgwick  describes  Parson  Wilson  in  The 
Limvoods  from  the  original  of  her  girlhood's 
pastor,  "  being  not  more  than  five  feet  four  in 
height,  and  perfectly  well  made,  with  well- 
turned  leg  without  the  aid  of  garters,  three- 
cornered  hat,  gold-headed  cane,  and  buckskin 
gloves,"  and  whose  first  act,  on  the  occasion 
of  a  pastoral  call,  was  to  "  smooth  his  hair  to 
an  equatorial  line  around  his  forehead  "  and 
then  to  help  himself  to  the  decanter. 

Here  in  Stockbridge  the  Revolutionary  spirit 


I 

**#; 


t 


ro 


The  Vicinage  237 

rose  to  the  highest  pitch  of  indignation  and 
enthusiasm,  sending  its  choicest  sons  to  Bunker 
Hill,  and  boycotting  goods  of  English  manu- 
facture. Here  in  the  War  of  1812  some 
French  prisoners  of  war  were  quartered  during 
a  memorable  winter,  much  to  Catherine  Sedg- 
wick's  delight,  then  a  young  woman  in  her 
early  twenties.  Here  in  1819  came  the  Rev. 
David  Dudley  Field,  D.  D.,  as  pastor  of  the 
village  church,  the  father  of  one  of  the  most 
distinguished  families  in  American  history,  and 
here  he  ministered  until  1837.  Here  Mrs. 
Jameson  and  Miss  Martineau  visited  Miss 
Sedgwick ;  and  through  these  village  streets 
have  passed  at  one  time  or  another  those  who 
have  had  the  most  honored  names  in  the 
world's  statesmanship  and  literature.  And 
what  shall  we  say  of  the  natives  themselves  ? 
What  would  any  town  be  without  its  local 
heroisms  and  sacrifices  and  its  sturdy  yeo- 
manry ?  It  is  no  wonder  the  pride  of  residence 
is  developed  in  one  who  lives  in  Stockbridge 
perhaps  more  than  in  one  who  lives  in  any 
other  town.  Its  history,  its  scenery,  its  dig- 
nity, its  quiet  give  it  a  unique  charm.  It  vies 
with  Lenox  in  attracting  wealth  to  its  sightly 
hillsides. 

Stockbridge   includes   within    the  limits   of 


238  Lenox 

the  township  the  outlying  hamlets  Glen  Dale 
and  Curtisville.  At  Glen  Dale  there  is  a  fine 
water-power  from  the  Housatonic,  and  until 
within  recent  years  this  little  village  was  the 
seat  of  woollen  and  paper  industries.  It  is 
through  the  burning  of  its  two  mills  paralyzed 
industrially,  but  here  the  great  American  sculp- 
tor French  has  made  himself  a  "  summer-place  " 
with  studio,  and  it  was  here  his  heroic  figure 
of  "  Washington,"  lately  presented  to  France, 
was  wrought  out.  At  Curtisville  is  located 
St.  Helen's  Home  for  the  Fresh-air  children, 
an  institution  of  the  most  beneficent  character, 
provided  through  the  liberality  of  John  E. 
Parsons,  Esq.,  of  New  York,  and  his  practical 
philanthropy  not  only  has  blessed  many  squalid 
tenements  and  joyless  households,  but  has 
yielded  him,  in  the  happy  faces  and  merry 
hearts  of  the  children,  the  best  return  upon 
his  investment. 

THE    STOCKBRIDGE    INDIANS 

A  solitary  monolith  of  rough  field-stone 
stands  at  the  western  end  of  Stockbridge, 
overlooking  the  river  flats  and  the  different 
golf  links  which  cross  and  recross  the  winding 
stream,  and  bears  this  inscription  :  "  The  an- 
cient burial-place  of  the  Stockbridge  Indians. 


The  Vicinage  239 

The  Friends  of  our  Fathers."  At  the  other 
end  of  the  village,  on  a  rising  piece  of  ground, 
converted  fifty  years  ago  into  a  pleasure  park 
through  the  munificence  of  the  heirs  to  the 
Sedgwick  estate,  of  which  it  was  a  part,  is 
"Laurel  Hill,"  once  the  Indians'  place  of 
meeting  and  council.  Between  these  termini, 
nearly  a  mile  apart,  stretches  the  beautiful 
village  street,  broad,  perfectly  level,  and  bor- 
dered by  ancient  elms  ;  a  street  which  breathes 
its  historic  associations,  its  classic  dignity,  its 
repose  into  the  beholder,  causing  it  to  stand 
out  as  distinctly  in  his  mind  as  any  of  the 
famous  streets  of  the  world.  Along  it  are 
other  memorials  of  the  Indian  period :  the 
monument  to  Jonathan  Edwards,  pastor  here 
among  the  aborigines  1751-58;  the  "Field 
Memorial  Chimes,"  which  mark  the  spot  where 
the  first  meeting-house  stood,  where  some  red- 
skinned  brave  "  wound  the  horn,"  so  to  speak, 
by  announcing  through  a  huge  conch  shell,  as 
through  a  megaphone,  the  stated  hours  of  ser- 
vice ;  and  not  far  away,  on  the  same  street, 
was,  until  within  two  years,  the  house  which 
Jonathan  Edwards  occupied,  and  where  he 
wrote  his  famous  treatise  on  the  Will. 
Another  sacred  relic,  still  surviving,  is  the 
"  Mission  House,"  standing  on  the  heights  to 


240  Lenox 

the  north  of  the  village.  It  is  a  sacred  period, 
that  of  the  Indian  occupancy  from  1736  un- 
til 1785-87,  during  which  all  the  Indians  of 
Berkshire  were  collected  here  in  this  broad 
plain,  surrounded  by  dense  wilderness,  through 
which  a  trail  led  by  Maus-wa-see-khi  and  Skate- 
kook  winding  in  and  over  the  mountain  passes 
of  the  Hoosacs  to  Westfield,  and  another  in 
the  direction  of  the  setting  sun  through  the 
forest  to  Kinderhook.  As  in  a  palimpsest,  we 
read  distinctly  beneath  the  surface  of  modern 
Stockbridge  the  record  of  that  missionary  pre- 
decessor, the  village  of  Wnogh-que-too-koke, 
with  its  wigwams,  its  savages,  its  belts  of 
wampum,  and  its  pipes  of  peace. 

Early  Indian  Settlers 

It  is  not  known  exactly  when  the  Muh-he- 
kan-e-ok  (or  Mohicans}  came  into  this  valley  of 
the  Hoo-es-ten-nuc  (Housatonic).  They  were 
here  in  the  seventeenth  century,  and  there  is  a 
record  of  a  fight  with  Indians  on  the  banks  of 
the  Housatonic  in  "  King  Philip's  War  "  in  the 
year  1676,  but  these  hostile  Indians  were  cov- 
ering their  retreat  from  Westfield  to  the 
Mahecannituck  (Hudson),  and  were  not  the 
peaceful  aborigines  of  this  valley.  This  is  be- 
lieved to  be  the  first  historic  mention  of  this 


The  Vicinage  241 

region,  and  the  name  of  the  river,  called  by 
some  of  the  early  chroniclers  "  Ausotunnoog," 
and  by  others  "  Ousetonuck,"  would  seem  to 
indicate  that  the  Indians  who  gave  it  this 
name  must  have  been  here  before  this  date. 
Whatever  may  have  been  the  date  of  the  com- 
ing hither  of  the  Mohicans,  it  is  certain  that 
the  earliest  settlers  did  nothing,  nay,  even 
they  did  worse  than  nothing,  for  the  regenera- 
tion of  the  debased  savages  in  whose  midst 
they  were  preparing  to  make  homes.  The 
Dutch  trader  with  his  "fire-water"  and  the 
first  settlers  with  their  greed  were  not  adapted 
to  impress  upon  the  savage  mind  the  immense 
superiority  of  Christianity  from  an  ethical 
standpoint.  And  besides  as  the  theology  of 
that  day  was  fatalistic  to  the  non-elect,  in 
which  class  were  doubtless  numbered  many  of 
their  savage  neighbors,  it  would  be  worse  than 
useless  to  offer  the  Gospel ;  nay,  even,  would 
be  an  affront  to  the  Deity,  whose  decrees  were 
fixed !  Moreover,  there  is  no  reason  for  sup- 
posing that  frontier  settlements  then  were  un- 
like what  they  are  now  ;  and,  indeed,  we  have 
positive  evidence  from  Dr.  Hopkins,  pastor  at 
Great  Barrington,  1744-69,  that  "vice  and 
licentiousness  were  everywhere  prevalent." 
The  days  of  "  the  fathers  "  would  not  seem  so 


242  Lenox 

gilded  with  the  lustre  of  other-worldliness,  if 
we  could  get  back  there.  The  Indian  was  not 
deceived  by  a  nasal  piety,  and  yet  we  read 
that  Konkapot,  the  chief  of  the  Muh-he-kan- 
e-ok,  wanted  to  have  the  Christian  religion 
taught  to  him  and  his  people.  Settlements 
had  begun  in  1722,  but  it  was  not  until  1734 
that  anything  was  done  to  promote  the  well- 
being  of  the  aborigines.  It  was  then  that  the 
Indian  mission  was  started,  prosecuted  for  the 
first  two  years  in  the  north  parish  of  Sheffield, 
and  transferred  in  1 736  to  Stockbridge,  which 
remained  the  missionary  town  as  long  as  the 
Indians  stayed  in  Berkshire. 

The  Indian  Mission 

And  so  Berkshire,  which  was  to  become 
celebrated  in  history  as  the  birthplace  of  the 
great  foreign  missionary  movement  in  Amer- 
ica, is  also  known  through  this  early  experi- 
ment in  home  missions,  with  which  the  names 
of  Sergeant  and  Edwards  are  so  prominently 
identified,  to  whose  memory  tablets  have  been 
placed  on  the  walls  of  the  village  church.  The 
saintly  Sergeant  gave  it  fifteen  years  of  his 
life,  coming  here  from  his  tutorship  in  Yale, 
then  in  the  first  twenty-five  years  of  its  splen- 
did career,  and  was  succeeded  by  Edwards, 


The  Vicinage  243 

who  had  graduated  from  Yale  in  1 720,  nine 
years  before  Sergeant,  but  who  came  to  Berk- 
shire from  his  long  and  troubled  pastorate  in 
Northampton.  Sergeant  died  in  1749,  but  he 
had  established  the  mission  on  a  sound  and 
firm  basis,  industrial  education  playing  no 
small  part  in  his  sensible  scheme.  His  was 
the  pioneer  work  —  organization,  building, 
translation,  preaching,  and  a  sort  of  general 
oversight  of  the  Indians  and  their  needs  in  the 
surrounding  country.  David  Brainerd  came 
hither  to  Sergeant  for  instruction  in  the  In- 
dian tongue,  and  made  frequent  visits  to 
Stockbridge  before  taking  up  his  work  among 
the  Delawares.  Jonathan  Edwards,  Jr.,  who 
was  a  boy  of  six  when  his  father  came  to 
Stockbridge,  says  the  only  English  he  heard 
spoken  during  his  boyhood  was  in  his  father's 
house.  There  were  a  few  white  families  in 
the  township,  but  the  younger  Edwards  says 
his  playmates  were  all  Indian  boys,  and  con- 
sequently he  himself  came  to  have  great  fa- 
cility in  the  Indian  language,  becoming  later 
an  authority  on  the  Mohican  dialect.  Stock- 
bridge  was,  indeed,  a  centre  of  instruction  for 
other  tribes  than  the  Muh-he-kan-e-ok,  some 
of  the  Mohawks  coming  here  for  instruction 
from  the  region  about  Schenectady.  The 


244  Lenox 

town  was  an  inviting  place  for  all  those 
schemers  who  make  up  Indian  "rings"  and 
grow  rich  off  the  Indian's  necessities,  and  more 
than  once  the  righteous  Edwards  burned  with 
holy  anger  against  their  iniquitous  doings. 
An  Indian  party  and  an  anti-Indian  party  at 
length  began  to  appear  in  the  town,  during 
the  long  pastorate  of  Dr.  West,  who  succeeded 
Edwards  in  1758  and  remained  pastor  until 
1816,  when  he  died.  But  long  before  his 
death  the  Indians  had  taken  their  departure 
for  Oneida,  New  York,  and  thus  ended  the 
period  of  the  Indian  occupancy.  Dr.  David 
Dudley  Field  says  "  the  average  number  of 
Indians  was  four  hundred  as  long  as  they  re- 
mained in  the  town,"  but  a  writer  in  the  Col- 
lections of  the  Massachusetts  Historical  Society 
says  that  the  number  of  Indians  in  the  town 
was  continually  "wasting  away."  One  author- 
ity says  that  in  1 736,  when  the  mission  moved 
to  Stockbridge,  the  number  "was  ninety  per- 
sons; in  1752,  150  families;  in  1764,  221 
persons  ;  and  in  1 786,  when  they  migrated,  one- 
third  that  number "  ;  and  another  still  that 
"in  1736  the  number  was  90  individuals;  in 
1740,  120;  in  1749,  218;  and  in  1786,  400." 

There  are  many  points  of  interest  in  con- 
nection with  the  "  missionary  "  period  in  the 


The  Vicinage  245 

history  of  Stockb ridge.  It  is  noticeable  that 
industrial  education,  which  is  so  prominent  a 
feature  in  modern  methods,  was  then  a  main 
part  of  the  work.  Possibly  that  idea  may 
have  been  born  on  Berkshire  soil,  too.  It 
would  also  be  worthy  of  note  if  the  report  of 
a  commission  sent  out  to  Oneida,  N.  Y.,  in 
1796,  to  inquire  into  the  condition  of  the 
Stockbridpfe  Indians,  could  be  summarized 

o 

here,  showing  in  its  conclusions  how  faithful 
and  efficient  had  been  the  labors  in  the  Berk- 
shire village  during  the  Indians'  stay  there. 
It  is  also  pertinent  to  state  here  that  the  sub- 
sequent history  of  the  Stockbridge  Indians, 
who  removed  to  Green  Bay,  Wisconsin,  in 
1829,  later  to  Lake  Winnebago,  then  to  Min- 
nesota, and  lastly  to  a  reservation,  I  believe, 
in  the  Indian  Territory,  has  fulfilled  the  hopes 
and  promises  of  their  early  education  ;  their 
general  character  is  industrious,  temperate, 
honest,  intelligent,  and  peaceful.  It  would  be 
interesting  to  study  some  of  the  prominent 
members  of  the  tribe.  Chief  Konkapot  for 
example,  and  Umpachene  and  Occum,  re- 
membering that  a  race  can  only  fairly  be 
judged  by  the  finest  specimens.  Certain  it  is 
that  the  seeds  of  that  work  by  Sergeant,  and 
Edwards,  and  Woodbridge,  and  West,  and 


246  Lenox 

later  by  the  son  of  the  saintly  and  sainted  John 
Sergeant,  possessed  the  germs  of  immortality. 

Jonathan  Edwards  s  Memory 

But  doubtless  the  point  of  keenest  interest 
to  the  general  public  in  connection  with  the 
missionary  labors  on  behalf  of  the  Mohican 
Indians  in  Berkshire  is  the  part  taken  in  that 
work  by  Jonathan  Edwards.  When  he  was 
called  from  here  in  1758  to  the  presidency  of 
Princeton  he  almost  declined,  and  his  letter 
asking  for  time  to  consider  the  "  call  "  and 
lay  it  before  a  council  tells  how  much  he  will 
sacrifice  in  a  literary  way  by  leaving  Stock- 
bridge,  the  many  books  he  had  it  in  his  mind  to 
write  for  which  there  was  leisure  in  his  Berk- 
shire parish.  He  burst  into  tears  when  the 
council  decided  that  he  ought  to  accept  the 
"  higher  call  "  and  reluctantly  left  Stockbridge 
in  January,  1758,  being  inaugurated  at  Prince- 
ton the  next  month,  and  dying  the  month 
succeeding  of  inoculation  to  prevent  small- 
pox, or  vaccination.  Those  seven  years  in 
the  heart  of  the  Berkshire  wilderness  were 
practically  his  last  on  earth,  and  one  almost 
wishes  the  mighty  brain  might  have  been 
spared  to  work  out,  in  the  Berkshire  surround- 


The  Vicinage  247 

ings  he  loved,  the  seed-thoughts  and  the  teem- 
ing concepts  with  which  it  was  filled.  His 
Stockbridge  life  was  not  without  its  romance 
as  well  as  its  work  and  its  friction.  Here  in 
1752  President  Burr  of  Princeton  College 
came  for  the  hand  of  his  daughter,  Esther, 
and  was  married,  a  child  of  their  union  being 
no  less  a  person  than  the  distinguished  Aaron 
Burr,  once  Vice-President  of  the  United  States 
and  the  slayer  of  Hamilton.  Here  in  Stock- 
bridge  Edwards  bought  the  house  formerly 
built  and  occupied  by  Sergeant,  the  house 
which  came  down  two  years  ago.  I  think 
of  no  more  fruitful  scene  for  the  painter's 
brush  than  that  of  the  philosopher  among 
the  savages,  a  picture,  indeed,  of  what  for- 
eign missions  will  become  when  to  the  be- 
nighted heathen  go  the  brightest  intellects, 
ready  to  cope  with  the  sophistries  of  a 
strange  religion  and  seeking  to  evolve  there- 
from all  that  is  true  and  immortal.  Jona- 
than Edwards,  a  missionary,  suggests  infinite 
possibilities. 

A  word  about  the  house  where  he  lived  and 
its  razing.  Jericho's  walls  were  not  flatter  than 
it  is  to-day,  but  the  enterprising  pastor  of  the 
village  church,  to  which  his  sometime  prede- 
cessor Edwards  ministered  a  hundred  and  fifty 


248  Lenox 

years  ago,  having  failed  to  persuade  his  flock 
to  raise  the  necessary  thousand  dollars  to  pre- 
serve the  historic  edifice  where  the  Freedom 
of  the  Will  was  written,  has  hit  upon  the 
novel  scheme  of  making  up  its  fallen  timbers 
into  various  objects  of  vertu  and  bric-a-brac, 
brackets,  candlesticks,  etc.  One  such  souvenir 
in  the  shape  of  a  substantial  chair  made  from 
its  oaken  beams  was  the  gift  of  the  originator 
of  this  interesting  conceit  to  the  author  of  this 
book.  As  oft  as  I  sit  in  it  I  congratulate  the 
world  that  it  has  escaped  from  the  tyranny  of 
Edwards's  theology.  Take  this  passage  from 
his  "  Sinners  in  the  hands  of  an  angry  God," 
preached  in  1741  :  "  The  God  that  holds  you 
over  the  pit  of  hell  much  as  one  holds  a  spider 
or  some  loathsome  insect  over  the  fire,  abhors 
you  and  is  dreadfully  provoked ;  you  are  ten 
thousand  times  so  abominable  in  his  eyes  as 
the  most  hateful  and  venomous  serpent  is  in 
ours."  And  then  follows  a  pitiless  description 
of  millions  of  ages  in  hell,  which  when  they 
have  been  passed  will  be  only  a  "  point  to 
what  remains." 

Nevertheless,  I  sit  in  the  quaint  chair  humbly 
when  I  think  that  it  once  formed  part  of  the 
rafters  that  sheltered  "  the  mightiest  intellect 
America  has  produced." 


The  Vicinage  249 

GREAT    BARRINGTON    OF    OLD    AND    OF    TO-DAY 

One  of  the  beautiful  villages  in  the  Berk- 
shires  is  Great  Harrington,  lying  in  the  southern 
part  of  the  county,  with  Monument  Mountain 
(Maus-wa-see-khi)  rising  in  the  northern  part 
of  the  township  and  the  Dome  (Taghconic) 
ten  miles  away  in  the  opposite  direction.  The 
village  is  built  on  an  old  Indian  site,  by  the 
side  of  the  Housatonic  River,  whose  waters 
to-day  turn  the  wheels  of  many  prosperous  in- 
dustries within  the  precincts  of  the  town.  It 
was  here  in  this  part  of  the  county,  in  the 
township  of  Sheffield,  which  originally  included 
that  of  Great  Barrington,  that  the  settlement 
of  Berkshire  commenced,  and  until  Lenox  be- 
came the  shire-town  in  1787,  Great  Barrington 
was  the  county  seat.  The  present  Congrega- 
tional church  stands  on,  or  near,  the  site  of 
the  "  Great  Wigwam,"  one  of  the  settlements 
of  the  Mohican  Indians  when  the  white  man 
first  crossed  the  Hoosac  range  to  take  up  his 
home  in  the  Housatonic  Valley,  about  the 
year  1725.  Indeed,  the  Indian  mission,  under 
the  auspices  of  a  Scotch  "  Society  for  the  Propa- 
gation of  the  Gospel  in  Foreign  Parts,"  was 
here  undertaken  by  John  Sergeant  in  1734, 
and  prosecuted  by  him  for  two  years,  when 
the  mission  was  removed  to  Stockbridge,  where 


250  Lenox 

it  remained  and  prospered  until  the  close  of 
the  American  Revolution.  Sheffield,  includ- 
ing what  was  then  its  "north  parish"  (now 
Great  Harrington),  was  incorporated  in  1733, 
but  in  1761  this  northern  part  of  the  old  town- 
ship of  Sheffield  had  grown  large  and  strong 
enough  to  seek  and  obtain  incorporation  un- 
der the  name  it  now  bears,  after  one  Viscount 
Barrington,  and  it  was  called  Great  Barring- 
ton  to  distinguish  it  from  another  town  of  the 
same  name  on  the  line  between  Massachusetts 
and  Rhode  Island,  at  that  time  a  disputed 
boundary. 

The  town  of  Great  Barrington,  which,  with 
its  outlying  and  extensive  manufacturing  dis- 
trict known  as  the  village  of  Housatonic,  has 
a  population  of  nearly  six  thousand,  has  suf- 
fered less,  being  on  the  river  and  on  the  rail- 
road, from  the  vicissitudes  of  fortune  than 
many  another  Berkshire  town.  It  is  the  busi- 
ness centre  of  the  immediate  vicinity ;  both 
sides  of  its  main  street  being  crowded  on  any 
afternoon,  but  particularly  on  Saturday,  with 
wagons  and  teams  from  the  surrounding  coun- 
try hitched  to  posts  close  together  on  the 
edge  of  the  sidewalk.  Yet  despite  this  sur- 
vival of  distinctive  rural  customs,  perhaps  be- 
cause of  it,  the  town  is  well  patronized  ;  it  is, 


The  Vicinage  251 

also,  well  patronized  by  summer  visitors  when 
the  annual  exodus  from  the  heated  cities  oc- 
curs. Many  estates  have  already  been  created 
within  the  confines  of  the  town,  and  the  coun- 
try houses  built  here  by  many  who  are  well 
known  in  the  large  cities  are  beautiful  speci- 
mens of  rural  architecture. 

Great  Barrington  is  charming  in  its  drives, 
which  lead  north  over  Monument  to  Stock- 
bridge,  eight  miles  away,  and  back  by  the  tor- 
tuous Housatonic  through  the  villages  of  Glen 
Dale  and  Housatonic ;  west  through  South 
Egremont,  a  charming  hamlet  always  well  filled 
with  summer  guests,  to  Bash-Bish  Falls,  a  cat- 
aract whose  small  stream  of  water  falls  a  hun- 
dred feet  down  the  cliff  on  one  side  of  the 
Dome,  and  south,  six  miles,  to  Sheffield,  an- 
other town  which  has  its  quota  of  visitors  and 
is  rich  in  interesting  associations.  Eastward 
from  Great  Barrington  the  road  is  a  constant 
ascent  to  New  Marlborough,  where  summer 
guests  abound  and  where  some  of  the  finest 
views  in  Berkshire  are  to  be  obtained.  Midway 
between  Great  Barrington  and  New  Marlbor- 
ough, on  this  last-named  road,  is  the  beautiful 
Lake  Buell,  on  either  side  of  which  a  drive 
passes  close  to  the  margin  of  the  lake,  making 
it  accessible  for  camping  and  pleasure  parties. 


252  Lenox 

Great  Barrington  enjoys  eminence  among 
the  towns  of  the  country  as  having  one  of  the 
finest  parsonages  in  the  world,  the  "  Hopkins 
Memorial  Manse,"  built  by  the  late  Mrs.  Hop- 
kins of  California  in  honor  of  her  husband's 
ancestral  relative,  the  Rev.  Samuel  Hopkins, 
D.D.,  pastor  in  Great  Barrington  1744-69. 
It  was  built  in  1887,  and  is  of  solid  granite, 
having  cloisters  which  connect  it  with  the 
church.  The  cost  was  nearly  a  hundred  thou- 
sand dollars,  and,  as  can  be  easily  imagined, 
the  expense  of  maintenance  made  an  increase 
in  the  village  pastor's  salary  imperative.  To 
this  .munificent  gift  to  the  Congregational 
church  Mrs.  Hopkins  superadded  the  present 
of  a  magnificent  Roosevelt  organ,  having  nearly 
one  hundred  stops  and  five  thousand  pipes, 
with  electric  echo-organ  attachment  and  water- 
motor  power ;  one  of  the  great  organs  of  the 
country.  It  is,  perhaps,  necessary  to  say,  in  or- 
der to  complete  the  story  of  Great  Barrington's 
eminence,  and  Mrs.  Hopkins's  regal  wealth, 
that  the  house  —  palace,  rather  —  she  built  for 
herself  after  her  marriage  to  Mr.  Searles,  the 
architect,  is  one  of  the  most  costly  and  elegant 
of  private  residences  in  the  United  States,  if 
not  anywhere.  It  stands  almost  directly  op- 
posite the  "  Inn,"  and  the  high  wall  which 


11 

"B    ""3 


The  Vicinage  253 

borders  the  Hopkins  property  shuts  the  house 
off  a  little  from  the  view  of  the  street.  A 
description  of  its  palatial  interior ;  its  atrium 
and  massive  columns  of  African  marble ;  its 
elegant  rooms,  filled  with  rare  and  costly 
works  of  art ;  its  music-room,  with  another 
grand  Roosevelt  organ  ;  its  furniture,  books, 
pictures,  Windsor-Castle  doors,  busts,  and  me- 
dallions, would  make  an  interesting  story  by 
itself. 

The  fame  of  this  beautiful  Berkshire  village 
rests  upon  the  securest  foundations,  since 
within  its  metes  and  confines  once  lived  two 
of  the  greatest  men  America  has  produced  — 
Dr.  Samuel  Hopkins,  the  father  of  New  Eng- 
land theology,  an  ultra-Calvinistic  "  system  of 
divinity  "  that  relaxes  its  grip  and  its  gloom 
only  under  the  sledge-hammer  of  modern  criti- 
cism ;  and  William  Cullen  Bryant,  the  poet- 
journalist.  On  the  extensive  grounds  in  the 
rear  of  the  Berkshire  Inn  still  stands  the 
house  in  which  Bryant  was  married,  when  a 
young  lawyer  and  the  town  clerk  of  the  village. 

SAMUEL     HOPKINS,     THE     EMINENT    THEOLOGIAN 
AND  ABOLITIONIST 

The  arc  that  spans  the  distance  of  thought 
from  Samuel  Hopkins  to  Miss  Catherine 


254  Lenox 

Sedgwick  measures  180  degrees.  Berkshire 
has  the  honor  of  having  been  the  residence 
of  extreme  thinkers  of  the  Hopkins-Edwards 
type,  and  those  of  the  Sedgwick-Dewey  order  ; 
and  perhaps  it  may  be  said  with  perfect  truth- 
fulness that  if  we  had  never  had  Hopkinsian- 
ism  we  would  never  have  had  Unitarianism. 
Who,  then,  was  this  man  Hopkins,  and  what 
was  his  system  ? 

In  general,  it  may  be  said  he  was  one  of 
the  greatest  theologians  that  New  England 
has  produced.  His  system  of  theology  dom- 
inated the  creeds  of  Congregational  churches, 
and  to  a  certain  extent  also  the  Presbyterian, 
for  half  a  century  and  more.  He  became 
after  leaving  his  twenty-five-year  pastorate 
in  Great  Barrington  the  doughty  foe  of 
slavery  in  its  then  stronghold,  Newport,  where 
he  was  pastor  thirty-three  years,  until  his 
death  in  1803,  covering  the  Revolutionary 
period  and  the  trying  times  in  that  exposed 
and  beleaguered  city.  Born  in  1721  in  Con- 
necticut, and  graduating  at  Yale  in  1741,  a 
pastor  at  Great  Barrington,  Mass.,  1 744- 
69,  a  period  exactly  synchronous  with  the 
early  development  of  Berkshire,  and  dying 
at  eighty-two  in  Rhode  Island,  his  long  and 
eminent  life  was  known  throughout  New 


The  Vicinage  255 

England.  The  intimate  friend  of  Edwards, 
whose  pupil  he  was  and  whose  biographer 
he  became,  he  differed  in  some  particulars 
from  his  great  teacher,  and  in  1793  gave  to 
the  world  his  System  of  Divinity,  a  work  in 
two  volumes  whose  speculative  and  dogmatic 
positions  were  designed  to  be  the  most  ultra 
reaffirmation  of  Calvinism  against  a  growing 
Arminianism.  Mrs.  Stowe  has  made  this  man, 
Samuel  Hopkins,  the  hero  of  The  Minister  s 
Wooing,  and  her  picture  of  him  shows  that 
a  man  may  be  better  than  his  creed.  Whit- 
tier  in  his  essay  on  Hopkins  says  : 

"  There  are  few  instances  on  record  of  moral  heroism 
superior  to  that  of  Samuel  Hopkins  in  rebuking  slavery 
in  the  time  and  place  of  its  power.  It  may  well  be 
doubted  whether  on  that  Sabbath-day  the  angels  of 
God  in  their  wide  survey  of  his  universe  looked  upon 
a  nobler  spectacle  than  that  of  the  minister  of  Newport 
rising  up  before  his  slave-holding  congregation  and 
demanding  in  the  name  of  the  Highest  the  '  deliverance 
of  the  captive  and  the  opening  of  the  prison  doors 
to  them  that  were  bound.'  " 

This  was  the  man,  then,  who  for  twenty- 
five  years  was  the  pastor  at  Great  Barrington, 
and  who  is,  next  to  Edwards,  the  most 
prominent  of  the  Berkshire  clergy.  He  was 
ordained,  a  boy  of  scarcely  twenty-two,  over 


256  Lenox 

the  church  in  North  Sheffield  (now  Great 
Harrington),  on  the  day  that  the  church  was 
organized,  December  28,  1743,  having  studied 
theology,  between  his  graduation  and  settle- 
ment, with  Jonathan  Edwards  at  Northamp- 
ton. His  salary  in  this  frontier  settlement 
of  the  Berkshires  was  ^"65  per  annum,  and 
almost  twenty  years  after,  June  4,  1762,  I  find 
this  entry  in  the  Great  Barrington  Town 
Records : 

"  Voted  that  ^80  lawful  money  shall  be  the  an- 
nual sallery  [stf]  for  the  Revd.  Samuel  Hopkins  when 
the  necessaries  are  bo't  and  sold  at  the  following 
prices  [scale  named]  and  As  those  necessaries  of  life 
shall  fall  or  rise  his  sallery  shall  fall  or  rise  accordingly 
or  in  proportion." 

Notwithstanding  this  advance  in  Mr.  Hop- 
kins's  salary,  it  was  not  paid,  and  in  1768  he 
brought  suit  against  the  town  to  recover 
"arrearages  for  1761,  1762,  1764,  1765,  and 
1 766.  The  town  voting  to  defend  itself 
against  the  suit,  Mr.  Hopkins  in  1769  re- 
signed, and  was  dismissed,  because  the  church 
could  not  support  him.  It  was  a  godless, 
frontier  community,"  and  vice  and  licentious- 
ness were  prevalent.  Five  years  after  Mr. 
Hopkins  had  been  settled  he  had  married 
in  his  parish,  and  by  the  wisdom  or  unwisdom 


The  Vicinage  257 

of  our  forefathers'  custom  a  large  family  was 
the  result,  so  that  Mr.  Hopkins  was  obliged 
to  support  his  household  of  wife  and  eight 
children  by  devoting  considerable  time  to 
agricultural  pursuits. 

Meantime,  he  was  a  vigorous  opponent  of 
the  loose  Half-way  Covenant  of  the  time,  and 
so  dissension  got  into  the  parish.  One  year 
the  town  cut  down  his  "  sallery  "  to  ^45,  and 
decreased  the  amount  of  firewood,  evidently 
trying  to  freeze  him  out  in  more  senses  than 
one !  His  church,  which  at  the  first  only 
consisted  of  thirty  families,  was  weakened ; 
"  scarcely  any  one,"  he  complained,  "comes  to 
my  house  for  instruction " ;  "I  study  but  lit- 
tle "  (he  was  rising  each  day  at  four  A.M.  for 
sermon  and  other  literary  work),  "  and  devote 
much  time  to  my  wordly  concerns "  ;  and  on 
May  8,  1751,  he  records  in  his  diary:  "One 
soul  converted  through  me ;  this  is  the  first 
evidence  I  have  had  of  the  conversion  of  ajiy 
one  since  I  have  been  in  this  place,  and  surely 
it  is  well  worth  while  to  preach  seven  years  to 
be  in  any  ways  instrumental  in  the  conversion 
of  one  soul."  The  bright  spot  in  Hopkins's 
Berkshire  residence  was  the  coming  to  Stock- 
bridge  in  1751  of  his  old  friend  and  instructor, 
Jonathan  Edwards,  and  until  1758,  when 


258  Lenox 

Edwards  was  called  to  Princeton,  their  friendly 
intimacies  were  re-established.  Edwards  died 
in  1758,  and  his  friend  became  his  biographer, 
a  task  as  colossal  as  it  was  painful  to  him. 
One  loves  to  think  of  these  two  mighty  men 
riding  back  and  forth  across  Maus-wa-see-khi 
to  discuss  their  scholastic  dicta.  A  scholastic 
age  splits  hairs.  Every  religion  and  every 
church  has  its  scholastic  period.  It  is  small 
wonder  that  Hopkins  had  only  one  convert  in 
a  heptade  of  years.  Edwards  and  he  forged 
the  chains  that  Channing  broke.  Hopkinsian- 
ism  was  formulated  as  a  system  in  1793  ;  Uni- 
tarianism  was  distinctly  organized  and  avowed 
in  1819,  and  Miss  Sedgwick's  A  New  England 
Tale,  in  1822,  was  not  only  associated  with 
the  rise  of  American  fiction,  but  it  was  fiction 
with  a  purpose,  and  that  purpose  was  the 
merciless  exposure  of  a  narrow  orthodoxy. 

But  Hopkinsianism  as  a  system  had  some 
peculiar  tenets,  which  may  have  been  infer- 
ences from,  but  were  not  an  integral  part  of 
the  older  Calvinism,  such  as  the  divine  author- 
ship of  evil,  the  willingness  to  be  damned  for 
the  glory  of  God,  and  the  doctrine  of  disinter- 
ested benevolence.  It  was  the  last  that  at- 
tracted Channing  as  much  as  the  former 
repelled  him.  Hopkins  was  dismissed  from 


The  Vicinage  259 


Great  Barrington  January  18,  1769,  and  was 
not  settled  at  Newport  until  April  11,  1770. 
He  was  then  a  man  of  forty-nine,  and  in  the 
full  vigor  of  his  powers,  but  the  immediate 
questions  on  hand  were  national  for  the  next 
few  years.  In  the  great  struggle,  and  in  the 
greater  crises  during  "  the  critical  period  of 
American  history"  (1783-88),  Hopkins  was 
occupied  with  the  measures  and  events  that 
marked  an  old  order  making  way  for  the 
advent  of  tlje  new  republic.  Accordingly,  it 
is  not  until  1 793  that  the  System  of  Divinity 
appears.  It  was  as  Whittier  says,  "  a  system 
which  reduced  the  doctrines  of  the  Reforma- 
tion to  an  ingenious  and  scholastic  form,  and 
had  the  merit  of  bringing  those  doctrines  to 
the  test  of  reason  and  philosophy."  It  will  be 
remembered  in  the  popular  mind  longest  with 
the  question  which  it  propounded  to  all  can- 
didates for  the  Church  :  "  Are  you  willing  to 
be  damned  for  the  glory  of  God  ?  "  a  question 
which  was  seriously  asked  far  on  into  the 
present  century.  It  was  the  highest  reach  of 
the  submissive  spirit  to  be  able  to  answer 
that  question  affirmatively ;  then  regeneration 
might  be  expected  to  take  place.  It  was  on  a 
par  with  all  the  grosser  features  of  the  reign- 
ing Puritan  theology. 


260  Lenox 

The  movements  of  religious  thought  in  New 
England  are  interesting  and  profoundly  in- 
structive to  trace ;  from  the  Mathers  to  Ed- 
wards and  Hopkins,  with  the  variations  of 
Emmons,  Bellamy,  Taylor,  and  Dwight ;  the 
mighty  cleavage  of  Channing's  protest ;  the 
reconstructive  system  of  Bushnell,  in  whose 
footsteps  we  are  walking  to-day.  It  is  a  hun- 
dred years  since  Hopkins's  "  system  "  appeared, 
and  its  reactionary  conservatism  was  destined 
to  be  only  the  leading  of  a  "  forlorn  hope." 
Hopkins  was  hated  and  fought  in  his  day,  but 
he  was  triumphant,  if  that  can  be  called  a 
triumph  which  in  crushing  an  enemy  does 
not  subdue  his  spirit.  Hopkinsianism  spread 
through  eastern  New  England  but  now  noth- 
ing is  left  of  it  but  a  name.  The  breath  of 
the  progressive  spirit  passes  over  it,  and  it  is 
gone. 

Of  Hopkins  as  a  man  enough  cannot  be 
said.  Read  Mrs.  Stowe's  beautiful  portrai- 
ture of  him  in  The  Minister  s  Wooing.  Af- 
ter his  dismissal  at  Great  Barrington  he  regrets 
that  he  went  away,  "  considering  the  unhappy 
consequences  to  that  people  by  my  leaving 
them  "  ;  and  in  1 794  he  revisits  his  Berkshire 
parish  only  to  find  the  most  pitiable  religious 
destitution ;  no  minister,  the  meeting-house 


The  Vicinage  261 

the  resort  of  bats  and  sheep,  and  the  Sabbath 
given  over  to  horse-racing,  sitting  in  taverns, 
and  not  enough  interest  in  religion  to  even  fit 
up  a  place  in  which  to  hear  their  old  pastor 
preach.  Whittier  says  that  on  leaving  Great 
Barrington  he  "  sold  a  slave  whom  he  had 
himself  owned,"  but  assuredly  the  great  heart 
of  Hopkins  was  stirred  to  deepest  hatred  of 
the  slave-traffic,  and  even  the  money  which  he 
received  for  his  slave  he  devoted  to  the  sup- 
port and  education  of  a  negro.  He  was  the 
proto-abolitionist  of  America,  and  he  only  as- 
sented to  the  Constitution  in  1789,  which 
granted  the  right  of  existence  to  slavery  for 
twenty  years,  because  he  preferred  that  to 
anarchy.  "  Still,"  he  said,  "  I  fear."  Hopkins 
was  a  man,  said  Jonathan  Edwards  the 
younger,  "  of  immeasurable  influence  over 
men,"  yet  he  was  meek,  always  preferring 
others  to  himself,  seeking  the  advancement  of 
Edwards,  when  it  would  have  been  to  his  own 
selfish  interest  to  have  pushed  his  own  claims 
for  the  Stockbridge  parish  on  Sergeant's  death. 
Mrs.  Stowe's  story  is  founded  on  a  true  fact 
in  the  early  love-experiences  of  Dr.  Hopkins, 
whose  conduct  in  the  affair  was  so  honorable 
as  to  have  suggested  to  the  novelist  her 
charming  romance.  He  refused  "calls  "  away 


262  Lenox 

from  his  Newport  parish,  and  stayed  on  "  one 
fifth  of  what  the  Boston  ministers  were  re- 
ceiving," and  refused  to  take  up  collections  for 
his  support,  but  lived  on  what  was  given  him. 
He  was  swift  to  apologize  for  errors  in  his  own 
conduct,  and  out  of  his  meagre  pittances  gave 
generously  to  all  good  causes.  His  novelist- 
biographer,  Mrs.  Stowe,  says  "  that  a  little  child 
once  described  his  appearance  in  the  pulpit  by 
saying,  '  I  saw  God  there  and  I  was  afraid.' " 
Others  saw  God  in  the  man,  and  loved,  be- 
cause they  saw  love  and  sympathy  and  be- 
nignity. 

THE    OLDEST    TOWN    IN    THE    BERKSHIRES 

Where  the  Housatonic  glides  past  the  tow- 
ering "  Taghconic  Dome,"  in  an  area  of  broad 
meadow  lands,  there  lies  the  ancient  town  of 
Sheffield,  just  three  hours  from  Manhattan. 
The  little  unpretentious  railroad  station, 
through  which  pass  the  summer  tourists,  is 
alive  only  at  intervals.  Otherwise  everything 
is  slumbrous.  There  before  you  rises  the 
lofty  "  Dome,"  and  behind  you  stretches  the 
sleepy  town,  whose  very  wide,  elm-bordered, 
and  densely  shaded  street  is  a  dream  of  quiet, 
restful  beauty,  with  the  golden  shower  of  sun- 
beams falling  through  the  leaves  of  the  trees 


The  Vicinage  263 

upon  the  road  below.  Sheffield  is  the  paradise 
of  the  weary.  It  has  no  villa  of  the  wealthy  ; 
no  social  conventionalities ;  no  fashionable 
mandates  to  obey ;  society's  giddy  whirl  and 
the  Ixion-wheel  of  business  are  stopped  ;  "  early 
to  bed  and  late  to  rise  "  is  the  improved  maxim 
of  daily  practice,  and  with  this  distinctive  and 
sole  asset  of  restfulness  as  its  stock-in-trade, 
Sheffield  receives  a  very  large  patronage  of 
summer  guests  from  the  great  cities.  "  Coun- 
try board  "  is  the  desideratum,  and  hence,  al- 
though a  second  hotel  has  just  been  built  and 
is  filled  with  guests,  the  villagers  and  the  far- 
mers in  the  vicinity  reap  a  very  large  harvest 
by  entertaining  summer  visitors.  Good  whole- 
some food,  plenty  of  cream,  fresh  air,  green 
pastures,  and  early  hours,  and  no  noise  more 
disturbing  than  the  chanticleer's  summons  to 
waken,  or  the  cricket's  lullaby  to  sleep — these 
are  the  attractions  which  have  made  Sheffield 
hold  its  own  relatively  with  the  other  resorts 
of  Berkshire. 

But  these  are  not  all  the  attractions.  Shef- 
field, as  the  oldest  town  in  the  Berkshires, 
possesses  a  historic  interest. 

The  tide  of  settlement  flowed  over  the  Hoo- 
sacs  soon  after  1725,  and  it  came  by  the  way 
of  an  Indian  trail  which  led  from  Westfield 


264  Lenox 

through  a  region  now  occupied  by  the  towns 
of  Blandford,  Otis,  Monterey,  Great  Bar- 
rington,  and  North  Egremont — all  in  Berk- 
shire— to  Kinderhook  and  Albany.  This  trail 
came  through  what  is  now  the  village  street 
of  Great  Barrington,  and,  as  Great  Barrington 
was  not  set  off  from  Sheffield,  of  which  it  was 
originally  a  part,  until  1761,  it  will  be  seen 
that  Sheffield,  in  the  extreme  southern  part  of 
Berkshire  County,  was,  during  the  early  years 
of  settlement,  the  important  town,  as  its 
"  North  Parish,"  or  Great  Barrington,  was 
later  the  capital,  remaining  such  until  1787, 
when  Lenox  was  made  the  shire-town.  The 
story  of  the  early  settlement  of  Sheffield,  which 
was  incorporated  in  1733,  is  not  unlike  that  of 
many  another  New  England  town.  Between 
Sheffield  and  Westfield  as  late  as  1735,  it  is 
recorded,  there  was  only  one  house.  It  was 
wilderness  "vast  and  primeval"  all  about.  In 
!735  ^e  present  Congregational  church  of 
Sheffield  village  was  organized,  and  to  the 
council  which  installed  the  first  minister  of  the 
church  came  delegates  "  from  the  neighbor- 
ing [!]  churches."  Jonathan  Edwards  rode 
hither  to  that  council  from  his  Northampton 
parish  fifty  miles  away  ! 

The  story  of  the  church  is  the  story  of  the 


The  Vicinage  265 

town  in  New  England  until  the  disestablish- 
ment of  Congregationalism  in  1834,  and  so 
the  village  church  is  the  centre  of  interest  in 
those  early  days.  Everybody  was  taxed  to 
support  it  and  had  a  voice  in  its  affairs,  unless 
he  "certificated,"  i.  e.,  obtained  a  certificate  from 
the  civil  officer  to  the  effect  that  he,  the  holder 
thereof,  had  other  religious  preferences,  and 
so  was  excused  from  the  village  tax  for  the 
support  of  the  Congregational  church.  The 
amusing  story  is  told  that  in  one  of  these 
Berkshire  towns  a  person  having  Episcopal 
preferences  applied  for  the  usual  certificate, 
and  it  was  made  out  in  this  way:  "  This  is  to 
certify  that  A.  B.  has  renounced  the  Christian 
religion  and  joined  the  Episcopal  church !  " 
It  is  all  amusing  and  very  interesting  how  at 
the  raising  of  the  church  in  Sheffield  so  many 
"gallons  of  rhumb"  were  drunk;  how  one  of 
its  ministers,  the  eccentric  Dr.  Ephraim  Jud- 
son,  pastor  here  from  1791  until  1813,  used 
sometimes  to  deliver  his  sermons  sitting,  and 
occasionally,  when  the  heat  was  intense,  would 
give  out  a  long  hymn  of  ten  stanzas,  and  then 
leave  the  church  to  get  some  fresh  air  while  the 
singing  was  in  progress  ;  how  intense  a  Jeffer- 
sonian  Democrat  he  was  in  a  Federal  stronghold 
yet  making  no  enemies  by  his  partisanship 


266  Lenox 

because  he  never  preached  politics  "  in  the 
pulpit,"  and  never  alluded  to  political  matters 
except  in  the  presence  of  his  loving  kin- 
dred!  In  the  adjoining  "North  Parish"  of 
the  town,  now  Great  Barrington,  was  preach- 
ing contemporaneously  with  the  first  pastor  of 
the  Sheffield  church  the  illustrious  theologian, 
the  Rev.  Samuel  Hopkins. 

Meantime  the  town  was  growing,  helped  by 
the  increased  immigration  hither  at  the  close 
of  the  French  and  Indian  wars.  The  news  of 
the  surrender  of  Louisbourg,  1 745,  and  of 
the  fall  of  Quebec  in  1759  brought  no  small 
joy  and  relief  to  the  Berkshire  settlers,  who 
had  been  harassed  by  the  incursions  of  maraud- 
ing bands  of  hostile  Indians  in  league  with  the 
French.  "  Church  services,"  a  local  historian 
says,  "were  interrupted  to  give  thanks."  It 
must  also  have  been  an  occasion  of  interest  to 
the  people  of  Sheffield  when  Ethan  Allen  led 
the  captured  train  of  artillery  from  Fort  Ticon- 
deroga  through  the  town  of  Great  Barrington, 
and  when  Burgoyne  encamped  there  on  his 
way  with  his  disheartened  troops  to  Boston 
after  his  ill-luck  at  Saratoga.  Here  the  Revo- 
lutionary spirit  ran  high,  as  in  other  parts  of 
the  country,  and  here,  later,  the  disgraceful 
Shays'  rebellion  reared  its  viperous  head. 


The  Vicinage  267 

Otherwise,  the  progress  of  the  town  was  nor- 
mal, quiet,  and  steady;  farms  tilled,  population 
growing  so  that  at  the  beginning  of  the  first 
century  after  its  settlement  it  was  about  two 
thousand,  and  the  church  and  its  minister  the 
centre  of  village  life  in  the  piping  times  of 
peace. 

Sheffield  is  noted  as  the  birthplace  of  some 
great  men  in  different  walks  of  life  :  George 
F.  Root,  the  noted  composer ;  President  Bar- 
nard of  Columbia  University,  and  Dr.  Orville 
Dewey,  the  distinguished  Unitarian  divine. 
Orville  Dewey's  change  of  faith  from  ortho- 
doxy to  Unitarianism  was  one  of  the  stirring 
events  of  the  day  in  his  native  village,  where 
an  intensely  Calvinistic  theology  was  dominant, 
but  the  people  have  long  since  forgiven  him 
his  defection,  because  their  own  standards  have 
broadened,  because  he  became  a  distinguished 
leader  and  a  famous  preacher  among  the  early 
Unitarians,  and  because  his  descendants,  lov- 
ing the  town  their  fathers  loved,  have  estab- 
lished a  local  lyceum,  "The  Friendly  Union," 
whose  beautiful  stone  building,  built  in  modern 
style,  furnishes  a  place  for  the  regular  winter 
courses  of  lectures  and  entertainments,  as  well 
as  for  the  housing  of  the  town  library. 

Each  town  of  Berkshire  has  a  picturesque 


268  Lenox 

beauty,  a  historic  interest,  a  peculiar  claim  and 
hold  upon  those  who  know  the  story  of  its  rise 
and  development,  and  it  is  not  strange  that  all 
this  is  causing  the  region  to  be  more  eagerly 
sought  out  from  year  to  year.  The  summer 
season  in  Sheffield  is  short,  usually  the  brief 
period  of  the  vacation  in  the  schools,  July 
and  August,  but  while  it  lasts  it  is  intense, 
and  many  of  the  guests  there  have  been  coming 
to  this  quiet  old  place  for  several  seasons.  It 
is  only  at  the  gateway  of  the  Berkshires,  but 
its  convenient  access  from  New  York  brings 
to  it  an  increasing  patronage. 

BERKSHIRE    DESERTED    VILLAGES 

Berkshire  has  many  "sweet  Auburns,"  only 
they  do  not  "  lie  on  the  plain."  They  are 
the  hill-towns,  inaccessible,  exposed,  desolate, 
yet  once  teeming  with  life  and  animated  with 
the  moving  pictures  of  profitable  industries. 
To-day  the  once  verdant  pastures  and  meadows 
have  literally  grown  up  to  timber  again ; 
the  weather-beaten  outbuildings  "  filled  with 
plenty  "  once  are  now  crumbling  to  their  ruin, 
and  the  plain  farmhouses  where  dwelt  a  pious, 
hard-working,  and  simple  yeomanry  are  unten- 
anted,  while  in  many  a  field  the  implement  is 
rust-eaten  where  it  was  left  when  the  final  chap- 


The  Vicinage  269 

ter  in  the  book  of  the  Berkshire  exodus  was 
written. 

I  visited  one  section  of  this  region  one  bitter 
midwinter  day  not  many  years  ago,  driving 
through — perhaps  I  should  have  said  scaling  — 
the  southeastern  portion  of  the  county,  which 
lies  seven  hundred  feet  up  from  the  villages 
alongthe  Housatonic,  and  in  which  are  the  towns 
of  New  Marlborough,  Monterey,  and  Sandis- 
field.  My  companion,  the  minister  in  two  of  the 
places  named,  said  to  me  as  we  neared  Sandis- 
field  :  "  You  will  not  know  when  you  get  to  it." 
Yet  here  in  1800  was  a  population  of  nearly 
two  thousand,  and  the  fourth  town  in  size  and 
importance  in  the  county.  Now  "  the  decent 
church  tops  the  neighboring  hill,"  lonely  relic  of 
a  former  grandeur,  but  that  is  all  that  remains! 
And  here  we  are  almost  as  much  higher  than 
Great  Barrington  as  Great  Barrington  is  higher 
than  New  York,  on  the  tip-top  part  of  this 
ridge,  which  runs  along  the  eastern  part  of 
Berkshire  and  is  the  water-shed  of  the  Con- 
necticut and  Housatonic  rivers.  Here  was 
the  one  main  and  central  street  of  the  village, 
the  "  four  corners  "  hard  by,  and  around  this 
church-crowned  mount  streaming  from  all  di- 
rections upon  the  Sabbath  days  towards  this 
sacred  peak  was  gathered  an  industrious  and 


270  Lenox 

thrifty  people.  The  town  lay  on  the  highway 
from  Westfield  over  the  Hoosacs  into  Berk- 
shire, the  thoroughfare  that  was  originally 
an  Indian  trail  and  led  to  Sheffield  in  the 
Housatonic  Valley.  Along  it  bowled  the  an- 
cient stage-coach  past  Three-Mile  Hill  and 
Six-Mile  Pond,  which  have  now  been  rechris- 
tened  with  a  more  ambitious  nomenclature. 

I  find  this  note  in  the  account  of  some  travels 
of  Professor  Benjamin  Silliman,  the  distin- 
guished physicist,  who  in  a  journey  from  New 
Haven  to  Lenox  and  beyond  passed  through 
Sandisfield,  September,  1819:  "It  was  quite 
dark  before  we  arrived  at  Sandisfield,  but  our 
road  was  good  and  the  welcome  light  of  the 
inn  at  length  caught  our  eyes.  We  slept  in 
a  great  vacant  ball-room."  The  church  which 
stands  on  that  Sandisfield  hilltop  now  is  the 
lineal  successor  of  the  ancient  edifice,  and  the 
site  is  a  good  place  to  pull  out  Goldsmith's 
Deserted  Village  and  reread  its  lines,  which 
glow  with  a  vivid  light  in  the  midst  of  the 
thronging  fancies  the  place  awakens, — 

"Sweet  was  the  sound,  when  oft  at  evening's  close 
Up  yonder  hill  the  village  murmur  rose," — 

and  are  literally  true  when,  describing  the  vil- 
lage pastor,  Goldsmith  says : 


*, 


The  Vicinage  271 

"  A  man  Avas  he  to  all  the  country  dear 
And  passing  rich  with  forty  pounds  a  year." 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  that  was  just  what  was 
voted  the  first  pastor  of  the  Sandisfield  church, 
the  Rev.  Cornelius  Jones.  Here  is  the  record 
at  his  settlement,  May  19,  1756:  "Voted  to 
pay  ^40,  and  the  minister's  lot," — which  was 
usually  a  piece  of  wood-land  which  furnished 
"  fier-wood,"  and  was  given  in  fee  to  the  first 
settled  minister.  It  may  be  added  that  an  inter- 
esting feature  of  the  ordination  of  Mr.  Jones 
and  his  settlement  over  the  Sandisfield  church 
was  that  the  services  were  held  in  a  barn,  and 
.the  moderator  of  the  council  was  Jonathan 
Edwards,  another  member  of  the  council 
being  Samuel  Hopkins.  Mr.  Jones,  a  gradu- 
ate of  Harvard,  1752,  remained  only  a  short 
time,  and  was  succeeded  by  the  Rev.  Eleazer 
Storrs  (Yale,  1762),  who  served  here  in  the 
ministry  for  thirty-one  years,  and  was  followed 
by  the  Rev.  Levi  White  (Dartmouth,  1796), 
who  continued  in  the  Sandisfield  pastorate 
thirty-four  years,  from  1798  until  1832. 
Goldsmith's  original 

"  Unpractised  he  to  fawn,  or  seek  for  power, 
By  doctrines  fashioned  to  the  varying  hour," 

doubtless  survived  in  any  one  of  this  apostolical 


272  Lenox 

succession,  but  I  fear  the  poet's  description  of 
"  sweet  Auburn's  "  pastor  as  a  man  who  "  quite 
forgot  the  vices  "  of  his  people  "  in  their  woe  " 
would  hardly  apply  to  any  New  England  min- 
istry of  the  period  named.  They  were  men, 
those  eighteenth-century  Berkshire  ministers, 
cast  in  a  heroic  mould  ;  poorly  paid,  supple- 
menting their  stipend  often  by  farm  labors, 
grounded  in  the  bed-rock  principles  of  an 
intolerant  Calvinism,  yet  sincere,  sacrificing, 
zealous  servants  of  their  fellow-men,  and  in 
many  of  these  parishes  through  the  county 
are  buried  near  the  churches  to  which  they 
ministered  so  long  and  well. 

New  Marlborough,  once  an  educational  cen- 
tre, is  the  next  town  to  Sandisfield,  and  ideally 
located,  with  views  rivalling  those  of  Lenox, 
but  is  only  a  shadow  of  its  former  self,  with 
property  selling  at  a  song.  It  is  now  looming 
up  a  little  into  prominence  as  a  quiet  resort, 
and  there  is  a  project  on  paper,  if  not  on  foot, 
to  connect  this  beautiful  town  with  Great  Bar- 
rington  by  trolley.  Its  old  academy  is  now  in 
the  season  a  commodious  and  comfortable 
hotel,  and  there  are  other  inviting  boarding- 
houses  in  the  village.  Monterey,  Otis,  Becket, 
Washington,  Peru,  Windsor,  Florida,  Savoy,  are 
all  towns  of  which  Sandisfield  and  New  Marl- 


The  Vicinage  273 

borough  are  types,  dreary  and  desolate  if  one 
considers  merely  their  inaccessibility  and  isola- 
tion, but  each  one  having  individual  excellences 
and  very  interesting  histories.  Tyringham  has 
alluringly  appealed  to  not  a  few  literary  work- 
men of  note,  and  affords  an  ideal  retreat. 
New  Ashford,  Cheshire,  Lanesborough,  Han- 
cock, and  Alford  on  the  opposite  side  of  the 
county  belong  to  the  same  class  of  "  decadent " 
towns,  i.  e.,  towns  which  have  been  left  stranded 
by  the  opening  up  of  the  Great  West,  by  the 
coming  of  better  means  of  transportation  into 
the  lower  levels  along  the  Housatonic,  and  by 
the  ruinous  competitions  of  modern  industries. 
At  Alford  may  still  be  seen  the  saw  left  in  the 
block  of  marble  with  a  slab  half  sliced  off,  just 
where  the  implement  stopped  when  the  marble 
works  were  abandoned  years  ago. 

The  problems  which  these  towns  present  are 
peculiar  along  religious,  educational,  industrial, 
and  social  lines.  They  are  not  different  from 
other  parts  of  "  decadent  rural  New  England." 
Religiously  the  Berkshire  decadent  villages  do 
not  suffer  so  much  as  they  do  educationally 
and  socially.  Two  county  missionaries  regu- 
larly visit  these  towns,  in  addition  to  the  regular 
services  of  resident  pastors.  All  of  these  vil- 
lages have  a  long  and  honorable  history  going 

18 


274  Lenox 

back  into  the  eighteenth  century,  and  many  a 
one  has  been  the  birthplace  and  home  of  some 
who  have  risen  to  distinction  in  letters  or 
finance.  Their  isolation  has  meant  for  them 
desolation.  Indeed,  it  would  seem  that  those 
who  have  become  eminent  and  affluent  and 
who  trace  back  their  beginnings  to  any  of  these 
towns,  could  not  better  pay  a  debt  to  the  place 
of  their  nativity  and  childhood  than  by  estab- 
lishing travelling  lectureships  and  libraries. 
Intellectual  vacuity  is  the  great  curse  of  these 
towns,  and  as  "  nature  abhors  a  vacuum,"  an 
empty  mind  is  pretty  apt  to  be  the  depository 
of  all  sorts  of  vagaries,  isms,  and  trivalities. 


VII 

THE  GENESIS  OF  VILLAGE  IMPROVE- 
MENT AND  THE  LAUREL  HILL  ASSO- 
CIATION, STOCKBRIDGE,  MASS. 

MY  theme,  "Village  Improvement,"  has  a 
technical  meaning,  inclusive  of  hardly 
more  than  the  hygienic  and  external  condi- 
tions of  the  village  :  sanitation,  good  water, 
neat  streets,  trim  sidewalks,  handsome  road- 
sides, attractive  dooryards,  shrubbery-hidden 
objects  of  offence,  and  an  agreeable  look  to 
the  town  as  a  whole,  by  the  planting  or  re- 
moval of  trees,  by  preventing  unsightly  "  dump- 
ing places  "  in  the  outskirts  of  the  village,  and 
by  a  general  oversight  in  the  matter  of  the 
streets,  their  roadbed,  their  sprinkling,  and  the 
lighting  of  the  same.  And  I  am  to  give  as  a 
concrete  example  of  all  this,  a  Berkshire  vil- 
lage, viz.,  Stockbridge,  known  far  and  wide  as 
one  of  the  loveliest  villages  of  America,  and 

275 


276  Lenox 

its  village  improvement  society,  the  Laurel 
Hill  Association,  which  has  been  the  parent  of 
upwards  of  a  thousand  similar  organizations 
scattered  throughout  our  country  as  far  as  the 
Pacific.  But  "  village  improvement  "  as  an 
ideal  is  something  more  than  this  technical 
conception  of  it.  A  good  library,  well-ap- 
pointed schools,  a  Law  and  Order  League,  a 
Citizens  and  Taxpayers  Association  are  prime 
requirements  and  essentials  in  the  general  idea 
of  village  improvement.  The  health  of  the 
village  must  be  considered,  its  appearance 
beautified,  its  mind  fed  on  the  best  literature, 
its  pauperism  and  pauper  spirit  decreased,  its 
social  life  infused  with  inspiration,  with  sympa- 
thy and  benevolence,  its  morale  improved,  its 
administration  made  economical  and  effective. 
Village  improvement  as  a  final  ideal  means  all 
that.  It  is  not  decorative  ;  it  is  regenerative. 
It  is  not  to  beautify  simply  but  to  beatify. 
We  have  been  handicapped  long  enough  by 
the  tyranny  of  that  olden  line,  "  God  made 
the  country  ;  man  made  the  town  "  ;  and  now 
we  are  trying  to  get  more  of  God  into  the 
city  and  more  of  man  into  the  country.  Vil- 
lage improvement  is  not  something  laid  on 
from  the  outside,  but  the  working  out  of 
mighty  principles  from  within.  It  does  not 


Laurel  Hill  Association          277 

have  in  mind  a  single  object,  but  it  takes  in 
the  whole  village  structure,  its  health,  its  ap- 
pearance, its  administration,  its  life.  And  yet 
I  wish  in  this  chapter  to  treat  village  improve- 
ment in  its  partial  and  technical  sense  ;  though 
the  reader  will  not  forget  its  larger  and  truer 
meaning. 

Village  improvement  in  this  narrower  sig- 
nification is  of  comparatively  recent  origin  ; 
and  it  may  fairly  be  said  that  not  yet  has  it  at- 
tained wide  acceptance.  An  article  appeared 
in  The  Atlantic  Monthly  for  1858,  on  "  Farm- 
ing Communities  in  New  England,"  by  J.  G. 
Holland,  and  I  have  just  read  that  protest 
against  the  unsightliness  of  farm  villages.  It 
evoked  a  good  deal  of  feeling,  adverse  and 
favorable,  and  inspired  some  books.  Five 
years  before  that  the  Laurel  Hill  Association 
(the  village  improvement  society  of  Stock- 
bridge,  Mass.)  was  started,  though  with  the 
idea  first  of  beautifying  a  village  pleasure 
ground  and  caring  for  the  cemetery.  I  pre- 
sume none  would  claim  that  "Laurel  Hill" 
started  with  the  very  definite  and  well-mapped- 
out  idea  of  what  it  subsequently  and  very  soon 
became,  and  what  it  now  so  eminently  stands 
for.  Almost  all  great  movements  are  the  ac- 
cretions of  littles.  The  idea  works  out  more 


278  Lenox 

clearly  with  more  intelligent  discernment  of 
new  needs.  To  Stockbridge,  however,  justly 
belong  the  authorship  and  the  sponsorship  of 
the  village  improvement  idea  ;  an  idea  which  is 
scarcely  yet  fifty  years  old  in  America ;  for  it 
may  be  said  that  the  "  Common"  which  was  a 
feature  of  New  England  villages  in  the  earliest 
days  was  more  practical  than  aesthetic ;  a  place 
of  common  pasturage  rather  than  of  pleasure  ; 
for  cattle  more  than  for  men.  Boston  "  Com- 
mon "  was  so  used  until  well  into  the  last  cen- 
tury, and  now  its  forty-six  acres  make  the 
beauty  and  charm  of  the  city.  The  Amherst 
"  Common  "  is  another  instance,  and  there  are 
a  few  others,  yet  even  these  spacious  com- 
mons were  not  objects  of  beauty  as  pastures. 
The  modern  spirit  transformed  them  into 
parks.  Would  that  there  might  have  been 
more  of  them! 

The  farm  village  of  fifty  years  ago — yes, 
much  less  time  ago  than  that — was  absolutely 
a  stranger  to  aesthetic  ideals  and  aims  in  its 
appearance,  and  hundreds  and  thousands  of 
villages  still  are.  Go  into  any  one  of  these 
towns  and  see  the  general  indifference  to  ex- 
ternal attractiveness, — carriages  and  horses 
hitched  to  the  curbs  along  the  streets,  papers 
and  refuse  heaps  lying  in  the  road,  grass  by 


Laurel  Hill  Association          279 

the  roadside  uncut  and  white  with  dust  be- 
cause the  streets  are  never  sprinkled,  unweeded 
walks  and  unshaven  lawns  in  dooryards,  and 
so  on.  We  are  gradually  awaking  out  of  all 
this,  but  it  is  recent.  Some  of  our  villages 
have  taken  the  matter  up  vigorously,  and  the 
intensity  of  our  present  devotion  to  aesthetic 
ideals  is  in  inverse  proportion  to  the  lethargy 
and  reluctance  we  showed  in  coming  to  them. 
In  the  village  of  Lenox,  where  there  has 
been  a  village  improvement  society  for  about 
a  score  of  years,  we  have  recently  taken  up  the 
beautifying  of  the  grounds  about  the  railroad 
station,  pulling  down  an  unsightly  shed  and 
planting  flowers  and  shrubs  ;  and  the  latest 
thing  has  been  the  adornment  of  our  school 
grounds  here  and  there  in  the  township  and 
the  decoration  of  school  interiors.  This  latter 
work  has  been  aided  by  the  Village  Improve- 
ment Society  though  springing  from  the  town 
itself.  The  contagion  of  the  spirit  of  village 
improvement  spreads.  There  is  an  awaken- 
ing appreciation  of  the  ministry  of  the  beau- 
tiful everywhere.  Some  benevolent  circles 
exist  simply  to  hang  pictures  on  the  walls 
of  the  poor,  and  to  beautify  their  tenements 
with  flowers.  It  would  seem  strange,  indeed, 
if  this  growing  recognition  of  the  power  of 


280  Lenox 

the  beautiful  in  our  lives  did  not  reach  our 
farm  villages.  It  has  reached  them,  but  only 
within  recent  years.  The  old  type  of  farm 
village  is  slowly  changing.  The  leaven  of 
"  Laurel  Hill"  is  working,  and  the  lawn-mower 
has  supplanted  the  old  scythe  and  sickle, 
which  made  a  lawn  look  like  quadrants  of 
close-cropped  stubble  wherever  the  knife  had 
been.  The  farmer  is  beginning  to  have  more 
use  for  the  ornamental,  because  the  orna- 
mental is  proving  itself  more  useful  to  him  in 
selling  his  property.  Our  New  England  vil- 
lages, which  always  have  been  far  ahead  of 
most  European  villages,  because  of  their  in- 
telligence and  thrift,  have  nevertheless  fought 
the  spirit  of  improvement.  In  the  place  where 
the  horse-rake  stopped  in  mid- August  there  it 
stayed  through  the  winter  and  spring,  and  in 
the  place  where  the  bob-sleighs  scraped  the 
ground  last  in  the  March  days  there  they 
rested  through  the  long  summer.  "  Why  put 
away  tools  !  What  use  to  make  any  extra 
steps  !  There  are  weeds  in  the  walk,  yes,  but 
you  can  walk  there  can't  you  ?  Cut  the  grass 
in  the  dooryard  ?  Why  man,  that  grass 
means  a  few  more  foaming  pails  of  milk  to 
me  !  "-—so  said  the  farmer  of  yesterday.  And 
his  farmer-neighbor  down  the  road  a  piece 


Laurel  Hill  Association  281 

did  n't  agree  with  him,  but  kept  his  fences  in 
repair,  his  walks  weeded,  his  lawn  mowed,  his 
tools  put  away,  his  outbuildings  painted  or 
hidden  by  trees  and  shrubbery,  and  one  day 
sold  to  great  advantage,  while  the  other,  with 
a  finer  outlook  or  a  better  soil,  went  grubbing 
along,  unable  to  sell.  Village  improvement 
appreciates  real  estate,  and  this  is  the  sovereign 
argument  that  is  changing  the  face  of  things. 

J.  G.  Holland,  in  the  article  in  The  Atlan- 
tic to  which  we  have  referred,  said  that  the 
reason  why  the  boys  left  the  farms  and  went 
to  the  cities  was  because  farm  life  was  unre- 
lieved dulness — nothing  but  a  grind  ;  the 
same  dull  monotony  staring  at  one  daily ;  no 
place  for  the  agreeable,  the  pleasant,  the  orna- 
mental. It  was  so  then  ;  I  guess  it  is  still  so. 
It  was  a  stock  phrase  in  his  day,  "  How  shall 
we  keep  the  boys  on  the  farms  ? "  And  his 
answer  was  practically  along  the  lines  of  vil- 
lage improvement ;  and  that  was  forty-four 
years  ago.  Make  villages  pleasant  to  the  eye. 
A  beautiful  exterior  goes  far  to  redeem  the 
hardest  lot.  The  sentimental  uses  of  the 
beautiful  are  as  distinct  and  valuable  as  its 
commercial  uses.  It  was  difficult  to  make 
men  see  this,  brought  up  as  all  our  New  Eng- 
land villages  have  been,  on  ideas  of  thrift  and 


282  Lenox 

economy,  "  plain  living  and  high  thinking," 
simplicity  and  utility.  "  Laurel  Hill  "  voiced  a 
needed  reform ;  is  voicing  it  to-day.  Twenty 
years  ago  its  daughters  had  become  so  nu- 
merous that  a  national  association  of  village 
improvement  societies  was  formed  at  Green- 
wood, N.  J.  (1882),  and  many  interesting 
papers  were  read. 

So  much  for  the  history  of  the  movement 
and  the  need  of  it.  Let  us  come  now  more 
closely  in  touch  with  the  movement  itself  and 
study  its  workings  in  the  parent  society ;  and 
then  we  will  ask  ourselves  a  few  general  ques- 
tions growing  out  of  our  study  of  this  theme. 

To  understand  "  Laurel  Hill"  one  needs  to 
know  Stockbridge,  its  quiet  and  classic  dignity, 
its  beautiful  environment  in  the  Berkshire 
Hills,  its  inheritance  of  rich  traditions,  its 
spirit  of  village  pride,  not  to  say  hauteur. 

To  the  Athenian  all  the  world  was  barbarian, 
and  it  was  imagined  that  if  Jove  came  to 
earth  he  would  reside  in  the  many-templed 
and  altar-strewn  city  of  Athens.  I  was  pres- 
ent once  at  an  anniversary  of  "  Laurel  Hill," 
not  ten  years  ago,  when  one  of  the  speakers,  a 
gentleman  well-known  in  letters  and  in  the 
church,  a  far-famed  traveller,  absolutely  capped 
the  climax  of  village  pride  by  asserting  that 


The  Indian  Monument,  Stockbridge,  Mass. 


Laurel  Hill  Association          283 

"  Heaven  was  but  another  Stockbridge."  This 
was  rather  rankling  to  the  mind  and  heart  of  a 
Lenox  man,  for  he  has  been  inclined  to  shape 
his  dreams  as  to  what  Paradise  is  from  his 
own  exalted  visions  on  the  heights.  But  after 
all  village  pride  is  as  good  a  thing  for  a 
community  as  self-respect  is  for  the  individual. 
Stockbridge  shows  the  dignity  of  its  antece- 
dent years  in  the  step  of  its  citizens  on  the 
street.  It  is  the  old  axiom  noblesse  oblige 
working  out ;  a  walking  worthy  of  its  history, 
its  traditions,  its  beautiful  location.  The  vil- 
lage lies  in  the  heart  of  the  mountains ;  the 
winding  river  meanders  through  it  ;  a  wide 
elm-shaded  street  passes  through  the  length  of 
it;  at  one  end  of  this  street  is  the  Indian 
burial-ground  with  its  appropriate  and  beauti- 
ful monolith ;  at  the  other,  a  half-mile  distant, 
is  the  pleasure  park,  a  wooded  hill,  in  the 
early  years  a  place  for  council  to  the  Indians 
and  deeded  in  trust  to  the  town  in  1834  by 
the  Sedgwick  family.  Later  this  park  was 
made  over  to  the  "Laurel  Hill  Association," 
which  takes  its  name  from  the  abundance 
of  laurel  growing  in  this  park.  It  is  in  this 
park  that  the  annual  meetings  of  "  Laurel 
Hill"  are  held,  when,  with  speaker  (often 
a  distinguished  man),  with  band,  and  simple 


284  Lenox 

refreshments,  the  work  of  the  year  is  celebrated. 
I  have  often  been  present  at  these  meetings 
when  the  villagers  turn  out  en  masse,  and  I 
honestly  believe  "  Laurel  Hill "  owes  some- 
thing of  its  success  to  this  yearly  assembly. 
The  Lenox  Village  Improvement  Society  has 
never  observed  this  feature  of  "  Laurel  Hill," 
partly  from  the  trouble  of  the  thing,  partly 
from  scepticism  as  to  its  practical  value.  Stock- 
bridge,  on  the  contrary,  never  omits  it.  It 
is  the  yearly  village  festival,  and  now  and 
then  when  a  speaker  like  Edward  Everett 
Hale  is  secured,  as  two  years  ago,  the  sur- 
rounding towns  send  large  delegations.  Every- 
body goes  for  miles  around,  and  the  address 
is  always  pertinent  to  the  day  and  theme. 
Really  Stockbridge  ought  to  preserve  and 
publish  these  addresses  for  distribution  or 
sale. 

"Laurel  Hill"  began,  then,  forty-nine  years 
ago ;  its  first  distinct  aim  being  to  put  the 
recently  bestowed  pleasure  park  in  good  shape, 
then  the  village  cemetery,  then  as  the  work 
opened  out  before  it,  it  extended  to  the  whole 
village. 

"  Trees,"  says  one  of  the  early  workers,  "  were 
planted  by  the  roadside  wherever  trees  were  lacking. 
The  children  were  made  helpers  by  calling  trees  by 


Laurel  Hill  Association  285 

their  names  if  they  would  watch  and  care  for  them  for 
two  years.  Others  were  paid  to  pick  up  loose  papers 
and  unsightly  things  in  the  streets.  Then  the  broad 
village  street  was  graded  to  a  uniform  level ;  walks 
pushed  out  to  the  remoter  parts  of  the  town,  and  prop- 
erty-owners encouraged  to  keep  their  grounds  and  walks 
in  order." 

And  then  the  work  enlarged  so  upon  the 
hands  of  the  society  that  special  committees 
were  appointed  to  look  after  separate  parts  of 
the  township,  which  was  mapped  out  for  that 
purpose,  and  now  every  square  inch  of  ground 
in  the  limits  of  the  town  is  under  the  eye  of 
its  special  committee ;  and  finally,  the  work 
still  enlarging,  each  department,  sanitation, 
finance,  trees,  lamp-lighting,  etc.,  has  its 
separate  committee.  The  district  comittees 
taken  together  make  up  the  executive  commit- 
tee of  the  whole,  never  less  than  fifteen,  hold 
monthly  meetings,  and  this  larger  committee 
has  power  to  appropriate  moneys,  direct  all  im- 
provements undertaken  by  the  society,  arrange 
for  annual  meetings,  and  offer  prizes,  or  pre- 
miums, to  the  villagers  who  shall  make  the 
best  showing  or  the  most  improvement  on  their 
places  during  the  year.  This  is  a  good  deal  of 
an  incentive  on  some  streets. 

The  money  for  the  work  of  "  Laurel  Hill" 


286  Lenox 

comes  from  the  interest  on  investments  (it 
has  a  fund  of  $5000),  an  annual  appropriation 
from  the  town,  from  private  subscriptions  and 
life  memberships.  But  it  must  be  remembered 
that  a  village  improvement  society  could  be 
started  anywhere  without  a  cent  of  money  in 
the  treasury;  in  fact  much  of  its  work  does  not 
call  for  money.  As  Mr.  Waring  says,  "  What 
most  detracts  from  the  good  appearance  of 
any  village  is  the  slovenly  look  which  comes 
from  badly  hung  gates,  crooked  fences,  absent 
pickets,  and  general  shiftlessness  about  private 
places."  The  spirit  of  that  remark  is  true, 
even  if  we  have  given  up  fences  and  gates 
now,  because  we  no  longer  pasture  horses  in 
the  open  streets.  Little  improvements  by  pri- 
vate owners  are  what  make  a  village  beautiful. 
One  place  in  neglect  can  ruin  the  appearance 
of  a  street.  Money  will  prevent  this  by  offering 
a  premium,  but  village  and  neighborly  pride 
ought  to  go  far  to  remedy  it.  I  was  talking 
with  a  gardener  of  one  of  the  large  estates  in 
Lenox  last  month  and  I  asked  him  how  it  was 
that  almost  all  the  gardeners  in  charge  of  the 
elaborate  "places"  on  these  heights  were 
Englishmen.  He  replied,  "  Why  !  every  Eng- 
lishman is  a  gardener ;  every  English  village 
provides  commons  where  the  poor  are  assigned 


Laurel  Hill  Association          287 

places  to  cultivate.  But  I  presume  the  great 
reason,"  he  said,  "  is  because  we  have  lived  all 
these  centuries  side  by  side  with  a  noble  class, 
whose  fine  estates  are  graced  by  gardens,  and 
the  long  familiarity  with  flowers  and  hot- 
houses and  magnificent  grounds  has  insensibly 
worked  far  into  the  English  character.  An 
Englishman  loves  flowers  and  likes  to  care  for 
them."  And  then  I  remembered  what  Miss 
Sedgwick,  the  American  writer  of  the  middle  of 
the  last  century, —  herself  a  Stockbridge  wo- 
man,—  wrote  in  1841,  in  her  book  of  travels  in 
England,  how  she  was  impressed  all  through 
England  among  all  classes,  even  the  poorest 
of  the  poor,  with  the  way  every  square  inch  of 
ground  was  put  to  flowers  ;  and  she  contrasted 
again  and  again  these  two-by-four  courts  of  the 
poor  or  middle  class,  bright  with  flowers,  with 
her  own  dull  villages  in  Berkshire  ;  "  land,  land, 
land  everywhere  and  never  a  flower ! "  I  have 
often  wondered  if  "  Laurel  Hill  Association" 
did  n't  after  all  owe  much  of  the  praise  of  its 
origin  to  the  gifted  author,  whose  chaste,  refined 
taste  and  free  spirit  won  the  immortal  laurels 
of  authorship  by  the  very  message  of  her  books, 
which  was  to  make  life  beautiful.  It  is  said 
that  "  Laurel  Hill  "  owes  its  origin  to  a  woman, 
Mrs.  J.  Z.  Goodrich,  who  did  indeed  write  and 


283  Lenox 

labor  for  it  until  she  got  it  started,  and  who 
kept  it  going  during  its  early  infantile  years ; 
but  how  much  did  she  owe  to  her  towns- 
woman's  books,  read  at  that  time  all  over  the 
world,  passing  through  many  editions  and 
making  Stockbridge  famous  by  the  people  they 
drew  to  the  home  of  Miss  Catherine  Maria 
Sedgwick  ?  Miss  Sedgwick's  message  was  to 
the  villages,  how  to  make  them  beautiful  with 
pleasant,  ideal  homes.  But,  however  that  may 
be,  Mrs.  Goodrich  was  the  organizer,  the 
anointed  apostle  of  village  improvement,  the 
"stirrer-up  of  things"  generally;  and  thus 
"  Laurel  Hill"  in  a  way  is  another  indication 
of  the  manner  in  which  woman  can  serve  her 
town,  as  a  humble  but  most  efficient  citizen. 
Before  woman  clamors  for  "rights"  she  has 
not,  let  her  use  the  "rights"  she  has.  Village 
improvement  is  within  her  sphere  and  influ- 
ence ;  many  believe  that  this  is  her  work,  a 
work  she  can  do  best,  and  certainly  "  Laurel 
Hill"  believes  that,  as  a  glance  at  the  person- 
nel of  its  committees  attests. 

The  success  of  "Laurel  Hill"  is  due  to  a 
good  many  causes.  It  has,  in  the  first  place, 
a  distinct  idea  of  what  it  wants  to  do.  It 
systematizes  this  work  so  that  all  the  interests 
of  the  village  are  covered  by  appropriate  com- 


Laurel  Hill  Association          289 

mittees.  It  interests  the  whole  village  by 
putting  itself,  through  district  committees, 
in  touch  with  all  parts  of  the  township.  Tax- 
payers living  in  the  outskirts  of  a  town 
naturally  protest  against  all  the  improvements 
being  made  in  the  central  part  of  the  village. 
"  Laurel  Hill "  has  also  owed  something  of 
its  success  to  its  success.  The  town  is  inter- 
ested in  keeping  alive  and  effective  its  own 
peculiar  institution,  which  has  given  birth  to  a 
thousand  and  more  similar  ones.  "  Laurel  Hill " 
owes  much  to  its  own  anniversary  meetings, 
to  keeping  itself  out  of  the  hands  of  politics, 
to  getting  the  town  to  refrain  from  organizing 
a  "  fire  district "  by  which  money  now  ex- 
pended by  "Laurel  Hill"  would  then  be 
expended  by  the  town,  to  interesting  the 
women,  and  so  on,  but  its  chief  success  arises 
from  the  results  as  seen  in  the  village  itself. 
It  has  justified  its  right  to  be  a  thousand 
times.  One  cannot  be  an  hour  in  Stock- 
bridge  without  being  impressed  with  the  work 
of  this  society.  At  the  railroad  station,  as 
one  gets  off  the  train,  the  flowers,  the  porte 
cochere,  the  handsome  structure  itself,  the 
signs,  "  No  dumping  here,"  as  one  comes  to 
a  spot  that  otherwise  would  be  the  depository 
of  cans,  bottles,  papers,  and  refuse,  the  absence 


290  Lenox 

of  unsightly  objects  in  the  streets,  the  beauti- 
tiful  cemetery  scrupulously  neat  (and  who 
has  n't  seen  country  cemeteries  in  shocking 
neglect  ?  ),  the  broad  street  faultlessly  graded, 
elm  bordered,  and  always  wearing  a  charm 
of  repose  and  quiet  grandeur,  the  houses  and 
lawns  —  all  these  tell  the  story  of  public  spirit 
and  village  pride.  But  they  only  tell  part 
of  the  story,  though  a  great  part.  "  Laurel 
Hill "  is  a  centre  of  creative  impulses  which 
express  themselves  later  by  town  action  in 
practical  measures  of  sanitation  and  water 
supply,  and  it  has  so  preached  the  gospel 
of  beauty  all  these  years  as  to  have  evoked 
in  the  entire  township  a  sense  of  the  beautiful. 
Let  us  come  then  to  a  few  general  reflec- 
tions as  growing  out  of  all  this,  and  the  first 
is  this  :  The  success  of  any  work  of  this  kind 
depends  upon  a  general  interest  on  the  part 
of  the  entire  village.  How  arouse  and  main- 
tain that  interest  ?  Follow  the  example  of 
the  parent  society.  Interest  all  classes,  even 
the  children.  Offer  prizes  for  the  best  places 
and  most  improvements.  Map  off  the  entire 
township  into  districts,  so  that  the  whole 
village  shall  come  in  contact  with  the  work. 
Have  annual  meetings,  yearly  village  festivals. 
Show  the  landowner  that  village  improve- 


Laurel  Hill  Association          291 

ment  enhances  the  value  of  his  property. 
Devise  ingenious  schemes  to  arouse  interest 
and  to  avoid  ruts.  Show  work  done  as  a 
specimen  of  what  can  be  done.  Study  the 
bibliography  of  the  subject  and  have  the 
books  bearing  on  it  in  the  town  library.  I 
am  quite  sure  that  in  Stockbridge  the  work 
is  done  by  the  village.  It  is  the  "  fad  "  of 
none.  It  should  be  everybody's  work  and 
everybody  should  be  drawn  into  it.  But 
secondly,  every  village  improvement  society 
will  have  its  own  peculiar  local  problems. 
In  Lenox,  one  is  how  to  discriminately  and 
reverently  apply  the  axe  to  some  of  the  trees. 
A  good  sewer  system,  the  best  of  water  from 
mountain  springs,  Telford  roads,  a  splendid  li- 
brary, electric  lights,  efficient  schools,  good 
sidewalks  pushing  out  gradually  to  the  remote 
sections,  liberal  appropriations  ;  all  these  should 
be  supplemented  by  that  vigilance  which  con- 
serves the  "  views "  for  the  pleasure  of  the 
passer-by  in  the  streets,  and  prevents  the  land- 
scape from  being  absolutely  shut  off  by  or- 
namental or  wayside  shrubbery.  Some  tree 
cutting  has  been  done  in  recent  years  under  the 
direction  of  Mr.  Sargent,  of  New  York.  Three 
lakes  are  visible  from  Lenox,  but  the  trees  at 
their  borders  have  been  allowed  to  grow  so  that 


292  Lenox 

now  these  placid  bodies  of  water  embosomed 
in  the  hills  are  actually  dwindling  in  size  to 
the  far-off  observer,  and  the  view,  as  we  say, 
has  grown  up  and  out. 

I  am  conscious  that  I  have  dealt  with  my 
subject  in  a  fragmentary,  partial  way,  but 
let  it  be  said  in  conclusion  that  plainly  the 
curse  of  the  country  towns  is  in  their  empti- 
ness,—  nothing  to  engage  the  mind,  which 
thus  becomes  vacant,  a  capital  place  for  all 
mischief  and  evil  to  find  lodgment.  Village 
improvement  should  always  work  up  to  its 
higher  and  larger  and  truer  sense ;  and  aside 
from  the  provision  of  a  good  library,  keeping 
taxes  down,  cultivating  a  high  morale,  killing 
the  pauper  spirit,  and  demanding  good  gov- 
ernment, which  go  with  the  larger  meaning, 
something  should  be  done  to  relieve  this 
vacuousness  of  country  towns,  by  entertain- 
ments, lyceums,  lecture  courses,  gymnasium, 
socials,  and  what  not.  In  the  village  there 
is  nothing  to  think  about,  nothing  to  take  up 
the  eye,  and  so  the  youth  are  on  the  streets 
at  night  with  nothing  more  lively  than  a 
prayer-meeting  to  attend,  and  usually  line 
up  around  the  post-office  and  stare  into 
vacancy.  That  sort  of  thing  is  perilous. 
Their  minds  will  not  be  vacant  long.  It 


Laurel  Hill  Association          293 

would,  in  my  opinion,  be  an  act  of  religion 
for  the  church  to  amuse  this  class.  At  any 
rate  to  improve  the  village  will  be  to  strike 
at  this  spirit  of  vacuousness  someway. 

Let  me  then  sum  it  up  by  saying  :  The 
ideal  village  is  one  whose  health  is  con- 
served, whose  appearance  is  tidy  and  hand- 
some, whose  mental  life  is  fed  on  the  best 
books,  whose  morale  is  self-respecting  and 
law-abiding,  whose  administration  is  honest, 
efficient,  and  economical,  whose  children  have 
careful  instruction  in  good  schools,  whose 
pauper  spirit  is  killed,  whose  taxes  are  not 
burdensome,  and  whose  social  life  is  kept 
fresh  and  healthful  by  entertainments,  lectures, 
and  pleasant  gatherings  ;  and  to  the  attain- 
ment of  all  this,  "Laurel  Hill"  points  the 
way.  It  is  one  of  the  many  original  move- 
ments conceived  and  cradled  on  Berkshire 
soil. 


VIII 

THE  CHURCH  OF  BERKSHIRE  UNTIL  THE 
DISESTABLISHMENT  IN  1834 

THE  aim  of  this  chapter  is  not  so  much  to 
write  history  as  to  present  retrospective 
sketches.  History  implies  continuity  in  the 
narrative  ;  retrospection  is  a  sort  of  general 
survey  at  a  glance.  History  is  the  completed 
picture,  down  to  the  minutest  detail  ;  retro- 
spection is  only  the  rough  outlines  of  the 
picture,  faintly  sketched  in. 

Berkshire,  lying  spread  out  upon  the  tops  of 
the  foot-hills  of  the  Green  Mountain  range, 
lay  unsealed  by  those  who  came  either  with 
missionary  or  domestic  intent  until  towards 
the  middle  of  the  eighteenth  century.  It  was  in 
1734,  after  a  futile  attempt  at  colonization  a 
few  years  previous  to  this,  that  the  first  settlers 
crossed  the  Hoosac  range,  in  what  is  now  the 
southeastern  part  of  the  county,  and  took  up 

294 


Established  Church  of  Berkshire    295 

their  abode  in  Sheffield.  It  will  be  remem- 
bered that  within  twenty-five  years  after  the  Pil- 
grims first  set  foot  on  these  shores  Springfield 
was  settled,  and  yet  for  almost  a  century  longer 
those  who  lived  to  the  east  of  the  Hoosacs  sat 
down  in  grim  despair  before  the  mountainous 
barrier  that  separated  them  from  this  beautiful 
and  inviting  region. 

There  were  good  reasons  for  this  as  we  have 
stated,  but  it  is  important  for  us  to  note  the 
fact  that  these  early  settlers  who  took  up 
claims  and  began  to  form  communities  in 
Berkshire  not  only  brought  their  Church,  the 
Congregational,  with  them,  but  they  brought 
a  Church  of  a  settled  policy  and  splendid  his- 
tory. Harvard  College  was  already  a  hundred 
years  old ;  and  Yale,  though  more  recently 
founded,  was  yet  strong  and  of  mature  growth. 
Cambridge  and  Savoy  with  their  formularies 
were  far  down  the  years  and  the  Mathers 
had  wielded  their  influence  and  gone.  Even 
Saybrook  with  its  unifying  trend — an  early  step 
in  the  direction  of  welding  the  churches  more 
closely  and  firmly  together  —  was  far  enough 
in  the  past  to  have  become  a  historic  fact,  and 
a  strong  factor,  in  the  Church  these  settlers 
came  to  plant  "  in  the  wilderness." 

It  is  noticeable,  then,  that  with  this  aureole 


296  Lenox 

of  history  about  them  —  and  true  to  the  Ger- 
manic idea  of  a  close  cementing  of  the  ties 
between  State  and  Church  —  they  scarcely  put 
an  axe  to  a  tree,  with  which  to  build  their  rude 
cabins,  ere  they  had  appropriated  money  for 
the  hiring  of  a  minister  and  the  support  of  the 
gospel.  The  incorporation  of  the  town  and 
the  organization  of  the  church  went  practically 
hand  in  hand.  It  is  significant,  perhaps,  that 
the  first  man  to  have  preached  the  gospel  in 
this  county,  to  whom  Sheffield  extended  a 
call  June  7,  1734,  was  one  Ebenezer  Devo- 
tion, and  as  I  read  the  records  of  the  work,  the 
trials,  and  the  results  of  Congregationalism  in 
this  county,  it  has  been  one  ever-glowing  and 
ever-eloquent  sermon  upon  such  earnestness 
and  faithfulness  as  can  be  called  by  no  other 
name  than  devotion,  devotion  that  vies  with, 
if  it  does  not  pale,  the  annals  of  many  another 
sublime  epoch  in  the  history  of  the  universal 
Church. 

It  is  scarcely  needful  for  me  to  say  that 
Berkshire  County  was  settled  from  the  south 
toward  the  north,  and  as  the  centre  of  popu- 
lation was  tending  northward,  so  the  courts 
were  moved  first  from  Great  Barrington  to 
Lenox  and  finally  to  Pittsfield.  It  is  this 
fact  of  the  early  settlement  of  southern  Berk- 


Established  Church  of  Berkshire    297 

shire  which  gives  some  of  the  churches  in  the 
southern  part  of  the  county  a  greater  antiquity 
than  any  in  the  northern.  Ten  years  after  the 
very  first  settlers  had  crossed  the  Hoosac 
ridge  of  the  Green  Mountains, —  emigrating 
from  Westfield  to  Sheffield  by  the  most  direct 
route  as  a  glance  at  the  map  will  show,— 
there  were  still  very  few  settlers  in  Berkshire  ; 
and  what  few  there  were  were  clustered  in  the 
south  and  southeastern  portions  of  the  county. 
Yet  in  the  first  decade  of  growth,  four  churches 
-  of  the  Congregational  order  of  course — had 
become  organized  and  were  efficiently  at  work. 
The  beloved  Sergeant  was  fluently  and  earn- 
estly proclaiming  .the  gospel  to  the  Indians  at 
Stockbridge,  the^second  church  to  be  organized 
in  the  county,  that  at  Sheffield  having  been 
organized  in  1735,  two  years  before  the  Stock- 
bridge  church.  In  Sheffield  was  Jonathan 
Hubbard,  to  whose  installation  over  the  church 
there  the  great  Jonathan  Edwards  came,  mak- 
ing his  way  from  Northampton  doubtless  for 
the  first  time  into  this  valley  where  he  was 
afterward  to  be  a  pastor  himself. 

In  Great  Barrington,  eight  years  after  the 
church  in  Sheffield  was  organized,  a  young 
man  of  twenty -two  years,  fresh  from  his 
studies  under  Edwards,  and  who  was  to  leave 


298  Lenox 

a  marked  influence  on  New  England  thought, 
namely,  Samuel  Hopkins,  was  beginning  his 
long  pastorate  over  that  people  ;  and  in  New 
Marlborough,  where  the  church  was  organized 
in  1744,  just  one  year  after  the  church  in 
Great  Barrington,  Thomas  Strong  commenced 
his  labors,  which,  if  we  except  the  adoption  of 
the  "  Half-way  Covenant"  (1769),  were  to  be 
a  blessing  to  that  parish,  for  the  record  reads 
that  he  labored  there  exactly  a  third  of  a 
century.  So  far  as  I  know,  the  church  at 
New  Marlborough  was  the  only  one  in  Berk- 
shire County  to  adopt  the  "  Half-way  Cove- 
nant," so  provocative  of  mischief,  so  derogatory 
to  Christian  principle,  and  yet  so  thoroughly 
sanctioned  by  no  small  part  of  the  New  Eng- 
land ministry.  It  is  worth  noting  in  passing 
that  these  four  men,  the  pioneer  pastor- 
preachers  in  the  county, —  Sergeant,  Hubbard, 
Hopkins,  and  Strong, — were  young  men,  aged 
twenty- four,  thirty-two,  twenty-two,  and  twenty- 
five  respectively.  They  labored  side  by  side  in 
harness  for  a  considerable  time,  Sergeant  the 
first  to  break  the  circle,  his  death  occurring  when 
he  was  only  thirty-nine.  Eleven  years  after 
Sergeant's  death  Hopkins  removed  to  Newport. 
Three  years  later  Hubbard  died,  and  after  four 
years  more  Strong  passed  to  his  reward. 


Established  Church  of  Berkshire    299 

But  in  the  meantime  other  churches  were 
springing  up, —  in  the  next  decade  and  a  half 
three,  Tyringham  (1750),  Sandisfield  (1756), 
and  Becket  (1758);  all,  it  will  be  seen,  in 
the  southern  part  of  the  county.  It  should 
be  observed  that  this  Tyringham  church  is 
the  same  in  continuity  of  life  as  the  present 
church  in  Monterey,  the  town  having  been  di- 
vided fifty  years  ago,  and  what  was  South 
Tyringham  became  Monterey  ;  and  it  should 
also  be  observed  that  he  who  first  ministered 
to  this  church,  from  its  organization  until  after 
the  war  of  the  Revolution,  a  period  of  thirty- 
four  years,  was  Adonijah  Bidwell,  one  of 
whose  descendants  is  a  deacon  of  the  church 
in  Monterey  and  an  honored  man  in  the 
county. 

The  population  of  the  county  was  now 
(1760)  rather  rapidly  increasing.  The  mili- 
tary defences  of  Berkshire  were  being  strength- 
ened and  repaired ;  and  with  the  feeling  of 
greater  security  came  a  decided  increase  in 
the  number  of  colonists.  In  the  next  decade 
(1760-70)  five  churches  are  organized,  four 
of  which  are  in  the  north  part  of  the  county, 
namely,  Pittsfield  (i  764),  Lanesborough  (i  764) 
Williamstown  (1765),  Richmond  (1765),  and 
Lenox  (1769).  Of  the  first-settled  ministers 


300  Lenox 

over  three  of  these  churches,  namely,  Wil- 
liamstown,  Richmond,  and  Lenox,  we  know 
little  more  than  that  they  were  graduated 
at  Yale  College :  Rev.  Whitman  Welch  in 
1760,  and  pastor  at  Williamstown  1765-76, 
from  which  place  he  enlisted  as  chaplain  of 
a  regiment  in  the  war  of  the  Revolution 
and  died  of  smallpox  at  Quebec  while  in  ser- 
vice, leaving  his  church  pastorless ;  Rev.  J. 
Swift,  graduated  at  Yale  1765,  and  pastor 
of  Richmond  eleven  years  (1765-76),  when 
he  was  dismissed,  becoming  distinguished 
afterwards  as  one  of  the  most  useful  and  emi- 
nent ministers  of  Vermont ;  and  Rev.  Samuel 
Monson,  graduated  at  Yale  1763,  and  becom- 
ing pastor  at  Lenox  in  1770,  where  he  re- 
mained twenty-two  years,  having  a  difficult 
and  uneventful  ministry,  ending  in  some  acri- 
mony on  both  sides. 

The  other  two  churches  organized  in  this 
decade,  namely,  Pittsfield  and  Lanesborough, 
had  as  their  first  settled  ministers  two  men 
who,  though  differing  toto  ccelo  politically, —  Dr. 
Allen  being  a  rabid  Democrat  of  the  Jefferson- 
ian  type,  and  Dr.  Collins  a  Federalist,  with 
Tory  leanings  it  was  thought,  —  yet  enjoyed 
exceedingly  prosperous,  useful,  and  long-con- 
tinued pastorates  in  their  respective  parishes. 


Established  Church  of  Berkshire    301 

Of  "  Fighting  Parson  Allen,"  forty-six  years 
pastor  of  the  Pittsfield  church,  one  could  write 
a  book,  and  we  must  compress  the  volume 
into  a  sentence.  Up  and  down  the  county, 
rousing  to  democratic  white  heat  every  town, 
praying  and  shooting  at  Bennington,  beset  by 
factions  in  his  parish,  which  toward  the  very 
close  of  his  life  became  torn  and  rent  on  ac- 
count of  his  political  thrusts  —  he  feared  not 
man  or  devil,  only  God.  It  is  no  wonder, 
when  Jefferson  was  elected,  that  the  bell-rope 
of  the  Pittsfield  church  broke  through  violent 
ringing!  Dr.  Collins  of  the  Lanesborough 
church  was,  next  to  Dr.  West  of  Stockbridge, 
the  longest  settled  minister  in  the  county,  Dr. 
West's  pastorate  being  fifty-nine  years,  Mr. 
Collins's  fifty-eight.  In  the  very  last  of  Mr. 
Collins's  pastorate  the  church  gave  him  a 
colleague,  who  became  his  coadjutor  and  suc- 
cessor. The  elder  pastor  ministered  in  holy 
things,  however,  until  the  very  last,  when  in 
his  eighty-fourth  year  he  died,  full  of  years 
and  honors  and  of  seals  of  his  ministry. 

In  the  next  decade  (1770-80),  the  period 
of  the  outbreak  of  the  war  of  independence, 
six  churches  were  organized, — Peru  and  Egre- 
mont  the  first  year  of  the  decade  (1770), 
Windsor  (1772),  Washington  (1772),  Adams 


302  Lenox 

(before  1778),  and  Otis  (1779).  Of  these 
churches  much  could  be  said  as  to  their  early 
history,  but  time  and  space  prevent.  The 
churches  at  Egremont  and  Adams  sustained 
troublous  and  short-lived  careers,  and  died ; 
the  Adams  church  having  only,  as  it  were,  a 
momentary  existence,  "appearing  for  a  little 
time  and  then  vanishing  away,"  and  the  Egre- 
mont church  having  a  little  longer  lease  of 
life,  its  pastor,  Rev.  E.  Steele,  being  settled 
over  it  twenty-four  years,  when,  between  the 
upper  millstone  of  the  Shays  rebellion  and  the 
nether  one  of  sectarian  rivalries,  the  little 
church  feebly  gasped  its  expiring  breath, 
knowing,  however,  a  resurrection  a  score  of 
years  later,  when  it  reappeared  as  the  present 
South  Egremont  church.  The  early  history 
of  the  Otis  church  formed  at  this  period  is  not 
worth  speaking  of,  as  it  hardly  got  on  to  its 
feet  for  a  score  of  years.  Of  the  first  settled 
ministers  over  the  churches  of  Peru,  Windsor, 
and  Washington  much  might  be  written,  par- 
ticularly of  Mr.  Avery  of  Windsor,  who 
though  only  just  out  of  college  (Yale,  1769), 
and  hardly  more  than  two  years  in  Windsor, 
nevertheless  gathered  a  company  of  his  par- 
ishioners and,  four  days  after  the  battle  of 
Lexington,  marched  off  to  Cambridge  with  his 


Established  Church  of  Berkshire    303 

troops,  of  whom  he  himself  was  chosen  cap- 
tain. He  was  dismissed  from  his  pastorate  to 
take  a  chaplaincy  in  the  army,  and  afterward 
served  at  Trenton,  Princeton,  and  Bennington 
and  Saratoga.  John  Ballantine,  the  first  set- 
tled minister  over  the  church  in  Washington, 
which  was  formed  during  this  trying  decade, 
is  entitled  to  the  distinction  of  being  the 
fourth  longest-settled  minister  in  the  county, 
coming  next  to  Dr.  Shepard,  who  is  the  third. 
Mr.  Ballantine  was  a  Harvard  graduate,  nearly 
all  of  his  contemporaries  in  the  ministry  in 
this  region  being  from  Yale.  This  church 
really  began  to  wane  during  Mr.  Ballantine's 
ministry  of  forty-six  years,  owing  to  divisions 
and  departures,  and  this  candlestick,  once  so 
light-giving,  seems  to  have  been  removed  out 
of  its  place,  only  to  be  reset  by  Time's  benef- 
icent changes. 

In  the  next  decade  (1780-90)  the  churches 
organized  were  Lee  (1780),  Alford  (1781), 
Dalton  (1785),  and  West  Stockbridge  Centre 
(1789).  Two  churches  of  this  period,  Alford 
and  West  Stockbridge  Centre,  have  had 
fitful  lives,  one,  Alford,  becoming  extinct 
shortly  after  its  formation,  and  only  kept  alive 
by  the  forbearance  of  the  Lord  and  the  endur- 
ance of  one  Rev.  Aaron  Kinne,  who  kept  a 


304  Lenox 

good  many  candlesticks  from  falling  in  those 
early  days,  and  the  other,  West  Stockbridge 
Centre,  which,  though  it  has  never  been  vigor- 
ous, still  is  in  a  better  condition  of  work  and 
promise  than  in  some  other  years.  The  other 
churches  of  this  period,  Lee  and  Dalton,  or- 
ganized five  years  apart,  have  in  their  early 
history  the  distinguished  names  of  Hyde,  the 
second  pastor  of  the  Lee  church,  and  remain- 
ing there  forty-one  years,  and  Jennings,  the 
second  minister  of  Dalton,  whose  pastorate 
there  was  prolonged  thirty-two  years.  Of  Dr. 
Hyde,  one  of  the  most  influential  men  Berk- 
shire ever  had,  what  can  one  say  in  a  single 
sentence !  A  young  man  like  all  the  rest, — 
scarcely  out  of  their  teens  and  fresh  from  col- 
lege and  private  and  short  readings  with  Drs. 
Edwards,  Bellamy,  or  West, — he  began  as  a 
comparative  boy  a  work  in  Lee  that  was  to 
engage  him  forty-one  years.  He  must  have 
been  a  man  to  whose  opinions  his  contempo- 
raries paid  great  deference,  because  we  find 
him  prominently  engaged  in  every  good  work 
throughout  the  county,  in  county  societies  as 
well  as  among  his  ministerial  brethren  in  their 
regular  associational  meetings,  in  the  councils 
of  the  State  as  well  as  his  own  town — a  veri- 
table leader,  albeit  a  quiet,  modest,  faithful 


Established  Church  of  Berkshire    305 

minister  to  the  last.  It  is  said  that  Dr.  Backus, 
with  whom  Mr.  Hyde  read  theology,  said  to 
him:  "Why,  Hyde,  I  sin,  and  repent,  I  sin, 
and  repent ;  but  you  don't  seem  to  have  any- 
thing to  repent  of."  Dr.  Hyde  was  an  excep- 
tion to  the  Yale  rule,  he  himself  being  a 
graduate  of  Dartmouth. 

The  churches  organized  in  the  next  decade, 
the  last  of  the  century,  when  the  population 
of  the  county  had  increased  to  over  30,000, 
were  Southfield  (1794)  and  Hinsdale  (1795). 
Neither  of  these  churches  started  off  brill- 
iantly; and  indeed  the  Hinsdale  church  was 
badly  handicapped  with  debt,  owing  to  shrink- 
age of  values  from  the  sale  of  pews,  which  were 
bid  off,  as  the  chronicler  states,  "  under  the 
influence  of  the  ardent,"  and  afterward  it  was 
found  that  the  bibulous  purchasers  had  not 
the  wherewith  to  pay.  Churches  were  raised, 
pews  sold,  doctrines  discussed  in  those  days 
with  the  ever-accompanying  supply  of  spirits. 

From  the  beginning  of  the  century  until  the 
division  of  the  Berkshire  Association — Octo- 
ber, 1852 —  twelve  churches  have  been  organ- 
ized ;  and  in  the  following  order  :  Savoy  (181 1), 
Florida  (1814),  neither  of  which  ever  had  any 
life  to  speak  of,  having  been  extinct  almost  from 
birth;  Mill  River  (1820),  Curtisville  (1824), 


306  Lenox 

North  Adams  (1827),  Mount  Washington 
(1831),  extinct,  West  Stockbridge  (1833), 
South  Williamstown  (1836),  South  Adams 
(1840),  Housatonic  (1841),  Pittsfield  Second 
(1846),  North  Becket  (1849),  and  Pittsfield 
(South)  (1850).  It  can  hardly  be  said  that 
all  of  these  churches  are  strong  and  efficient ; 
though  some  of  them  are  notably  so,  and 
others  are  doing  faithful  work  up  to  the 
measure  of  their  ability.  Four  of  them  have 
died,  Savoy,  Florida,  Mount  Washington,  and 
North  Becket,  the  last  merging  with  the 
Methodists.  They  were,  but  are  not.  Of 
the  two  churches  organized  since  the  old 
Berkshire  Association  divided,  namely,  White 
Oaks  (1868)  and  New  Boston  (1874),  it  may 
be  said  that  their  feebleness  is  due  to  environ- 
ment and  causes  wholly  beyond  their  control, 
as  is  the  case  with  many  another  church  of  our 
order  in  the  county. 

To  retrace  our  steps,  then,  to  that  period 
which  might  be  termed  the  Golden  Age  of 
Congregationalism  in  this  county,  let  us  lose 
ourselves  once  more  among  those  distinguished 
men  whose  successors  we  are.  We  have  men- 
tioned some  whose  names  are  in  close  connec- 
tion with  the  very  earliest  history  of  the 
churches,,  but  there  are  others  equally  and 


Established  Church  of  Berkshire    307 

more  renowned.  It  is  certain  that  the  mod- 
ern Berkshire  pulpit  has  no  reason  to  lightly 
esteem  the  work  or  the  worth  of  some 
who  have  only  lately  gone  from  us  —  Mark 
Hopkins,  Gladden,  Hunger,  and  Parkhurst, 
leaders  in  the  world  of  thought  to-day,  and 
wearers  of  the  mantles  of  the  prophets  ;  and, 
moreover,  we  would  not  be  understood  as  di- 
minishing aught  the  earnestness  and  efficiency 
of  the  present  Berkshire  ministry  because  we 
hold  up  to  view  the  colossal  labors,  the  faith- 
fulness and  earnestness,  the  sturdy  character, 
the  mighty  influence,  and  the  eminent  distinc- 
tion of  those  who  once  labored  here,  as  pas- 
tors of  the  Congregational  churches.  We 
shall  only  repeat  the  names  we  have  already 
mentioned,  which  belong  not  only  to  the  plant- 
ing time  but  to  the  period  of  the  growth  of  these 
churches  as  well,  as  many  of  these  first  settled 
pastors  remained  until  death  at  their  posts,  as 
we  have  seen  :  Hubbard  and  Sergeant,  Strong 
and  Bidwell,  Allen  and  Collins  and  Hyde  and 
others.  Their  immediate  successors  evidently 
prized  their  inheritance  of  entering  into  the 
labors  of  these  proto-preachers  and  upholding 
the  dignity  and  fame  of  the  Berkshire  pulpit. 
Here  wrought  Edwards  seven  years,  writing 
his  treatise  on  the  Will  amid  the  labors  of 


308  Lenox 

his  Stockbridge  pastorate,  from  which  he  was 
called  to  the  presidency  of  Princeton,  and  to 
which  he  reluctantly  went.  Here  wrought 
that  other  mighty  theologian,  Samuel  Hop- 
kins, whose  impress  was  felt  for  a  century  or 
more  in  all  our  churches  and  throughout  our 
whole  pale  ;  and  it  is  pleasant  to  know  the 
generous  rivalry  between  these  two  pastors  of 
neighboring  Berkshire  churches.  Hopkins  on 
the  death  of  Sergeant  recommended  Edwards 
for  the  Stockbridge  parish,  and  thus  their 
earlier  friendship  was  renewed  ;  preceptor  and 
pupil  once  more  together  and  under  what  pe- 
culiar circumstances  !  Theologians  of  the  high- 
est rank,  original  students  of  whom  subsequent 
men  for  a  long,  long  period  were  to  be  echoes 
or  interpreters  —  out  here  on  the  frontier,  mis- 
sionaries, so  to  speak,  their  lives  often  in 
jeopardy  from  the  savages,  hampered  with  diffi- 
culties, Edwards  smarting  under  the  memories 
of  his  Northampton  parish,  Hopkins  unable  to 
get  his  meagre  salary,  and  forced  on  that  ac- 
count to  leave  Great  Barrington  ;  yet  pursu- 
ing quietly  and  persistently  those  studies  which 
enchained  them  by  the  recondite  mysteries  and 
boundless  questions  they  unfolded,  studies 
which  were  to  make  their  names  famous 
throughout  the  world.  It  is  pathetic  to  read 


Established  Church  of  Berkshire    309 

in  Hopkins's  autobiographic  memoirs,  after  he 
was  appointed  the  literary  executor  of  Ed- 
wards and  at  Mrs.  Edwards's  express  request 
had  agreed  to  write  the  life  of  her  husband  : 

"  As  these  manuscripts  were  in  my  hands  a  number  of 
years,  I  paid  my  chief  attention  to  them,  until  I  had  read 
them  all,  which  consisted  of  a  great  number  of  volumes, 
some  of  them  large,  besides  sermons,  of  which  sermons 
I  did  not  read  the  whole.  In  doing  this  I  had  much 
pleasure  and  profit.  My  mind  became  more  engaged  in 
study,  rising,  great  part  of  my  time,  at  four  o'clock  in 
the  morning  to  pursue  my  study,  in  which  I  took  great 
pleasure." 

Only  a  little  less  galactic  than  these  are  the 
names  of  West,  the  minister  of  Stockbridge  for 
fifty-nine  years,  longest  settled  of  any  minister 
in  the  history  of  the  county,  and  Catlin,  who 
was  the  minister  at  New  Marlborough  thirty- 
nine  years.  I  have  myself  conversed  recently 
with  an  aged  lady  in  Stockbridge  who  remem- 
bers Dr.  West,  with  his  short  clothes,  silver 
buckles,  hair  braided  down  his  back,  and  three- 
cornered  hat.  With  this  the  account  of  Miss 
Catherine  Sedgwick  exactly  tallies.  Dr.  West 
was  a  precisionist,  an  exquisite  and  a  mighty 
theologian.  Over  eighty  young  men  prepar- 
ing for  the  ministry  read  theology  with  him 


310  Lenox 

and  they  became  many  of  them  noted  preach- 
ers. His  home  became  a  sort  of  theological 
seminary.  West  came  into  the  county  ten 
years  before  Hopkins  left  it;  and  under  the 
influence  of  this  friendship  West  became  an 
ultra-Calvinist,  and  his  school  a  foremost  and 
strenuous  advocate  of  what  was  known  as 
Hopkinsianism.  Dr.  West  was  consulted  as  to 
the  foundation  of  Andover,  and  was  the  biog- 
rapher of  Hopkins.  He  was  also  chaplain  at 
the  Hoosac  fort ;  and  like  Allen's  prayer  at 
Bennington,  to  which  the  soldiers  attributed 
our  victory  (although  Allen  fought  as  well  as 
he  prayed),  so  at  the  Berkshire  convention 
which  met  at  Stockbridge  in  the  early  days  of 
the  Revolution  and  resolved  to  "boycott"  all 
goods  of  British  manufacture,  West's  "  ani- 
mated prayer"  lingered  long  in  the  hearts  of 
those  early  patriots  of  the  county,  which  was 
one  of  the  first  to  throw  down  that  gauntlet  of 
revolt.  This  action  of  the  Berkshire  men,  not 
unworthy  to  be  classed  with  the  Boston  Tea 
Party,  was  abetted  and  sanctioned  by  their 
youthful  religious  leaders  and  teachers. 

Over  in  New  Marlborough  there  was,  as  a 
contemporary  of  Dr.  West,  though  not  of  Hop- 
kins, a  man,  Jacob  Catlin,  whose  Theological 
Compendium,  a  work  much  prized  in  his  day, 


Established  Church  of  Berkshire    311 

lies  before  me  as  I  write.  He  was  a  pupil  of 
West,  and  he  in  turn  became  an  instructor 
of  many  young  men  about  to  go  into  the  min- 
istry. It  is  said  of  him  and  of  Dr.  Hyde  that 
they  almost  never  laughed.  Dr.  Catlin  was 
known  to  laugh  once,  and  Dr.  Hyde  never 
laughed  loud  enough  to  be  heard  in  the  next 
room.  Catlin,  owing  to  his  small  salary,  car- 
ried on  farming  on  an  extensive  scale,  making 
worldlings  envious  of  his  success  in  tilling  the 
soil,  and  yet  he  always  found  time  to  write 
out  two  sermons  a  week,  conducted  numerous 
meetings  every  week,  and  between  services  on 
the  Sabbath  carried  on  a  sort  of  Bible  school 
and  parochial  bureau  of  information.  He  was, 
like  others  of  his  brethren,  an  ardent  lover  of 
the  Berkshire  Association,  which  was  a  sort  of 
advanced  Bible  class,  lasting  two  days  or  so 
and  devoted  to  spiritual  and  biblical  exercises 
mainly.  Yale  gave  him  a  D.D. 

Another  minister  of  this  period  was  E.  Jud- 
son  of  the  Sheffield  church,  who,  like  West, 
changed  from  the  Arminian  to  an  ultra-Calvin- 
istic  theology,  and,  what  is  more,  changed  his 
church,  too,  for  as  one  said  :  "  We  were  made 
Calvinists  before  we  knew  it."  Mr.  Judson 
was  himself  an  instructor  of  theological  stu- 
dents, and,  though  eccentric,  was  "  esteemed 


3 i 2  Lenox 

highly  for  his  work's  sake."  We  mention  him 
here  because  he  was  the  "  faithful  personal  and 
political  friend  "  of  Thomas  Allen  of  the  church 
in  Pittsfield,  both  of  them  being  intense  parti- 
sans of  the  Jeffersonian  type,  though  Judson 
was  far  more  adroit  than  Allen.  The  Berk- 
shire Association  deeply  offended  Dr.  Allen, 
toward  the  very  last  of  his  life,  by  sanctioning 
the  new  church  enterprise  which  split  off  from 
the  First  Church  owing  to  Allen's  political  ser- 
mons ;  and  the  chronicler  of  Allen's  funeral 
tells  a  volume  between  the  lines  when  he  says : 

"  His  funeral  sermon  was  preached  by  his  faithful 
personal  political  friend,  the  Rev.  E.  Judson  of  Shef- 
field. .  .  .  Other  clergymen  who  took  part  were 
Rev.  Mr.  Marsh  of  Bennington  and  a  Mr.  Hall,  who  was 
preaching  as  a  candidate."  And  then  the  historian 
adds :  "  Many  of  the  neighboring  ministers  were,  how- 
ever, present." 

And  what  shall  I  more  say.  For  the  time 
would  fail  me  to  tell  of  William  Allen,  called 
from  Pittsfield  to  the  presidency  of  Bowdoin  ; 
of  Humphrey,  called  to  the  presidency  of  Am- 
herst ;  of  John  De  Witt,  long  a  prominent 
teacher  in  the  New  Brunswick  seminary,  once 
a  colleague  of  Mr.  Collins ;  of  John  Todd  and 
his  thirty-one  years'  pastorate  in  Pittsfield ; 
of  James  Bradford  and  his  thirty-nine  years' 


Established  Church  of  Berkshire    313 

pastorate  in  Sheffield ;  of  Dr.  Shepard  and 
his  fifty-one  years'  pastorate  in  Lenox ;  of  G. 
Dorrance  and  his  thirty-nine  years'  pastorate 
in  Windsor ;  also  in  more  recent  years  of 
Twining,  of  Hinsdale  once,  for  many  years 
on  the  Independent ;  of  Alden,  formerly  of 
Lenox  and  long-time  the  Secretary  of  the 
American  Board  of  Foreign  Missions ;  of 
Harris,  formerly  of  the  South  Church,  Pitts- 
field,  long  a  most  distinguished  teacher  and 
leader  at  New  Haven.  Thirty-six  ministers 
have  served  the  churches  of  this  county,  by 
reason  of  their  long  pastorates,  a  grand  total 
of  eleven  hundred  years.  It  will  be  permitted 
me,  perhaps,  to  speak  specially  of  two  minis- 
ters, Dr.  Field  of  Stockbridge,  and  Dr.  Shep- 
ard of  Lenox.  Dr.  Field  was  the  author  of  a 
very  valuable  history  of  Berkshire,  and  was  no 
mean  successor  of  West,  Edwards,  and  Ser- 
geant, though  his  pastorate  was  not  as  long  as 
that  of  others  in  the  county.  Dr.  Shepard  of 
Lenox,  nearly  fifty-one  years  pastor  of  the 
church,  was  not  as  great  a  theologian  as  West, 
with  whom,  as  well  as  with  Dr.  Field,  he  was 
contemporary,  yet  a  powerful  and  useful 
preacher  of  great  ability  ;  blessed  with  fre- 
quent revivals ;  the  very  opposite  of  Hyde 
and  Catlin  in  outward  mien,  for  Shepard  was 


3H  Lenox 

very  sociable  and  jolly ;  with  a  voice  which 
Dr.  Todd  pronounced  "  the  most  wonderful 
he  ever  heard."  He  was  a  man  of  marked 
influence  in  the  county.  His  remains  lie  in 
the  churchyard  near  the  church,  like  those  of 
many  of  the  older  preachers,  who  became  so 
attached  to  their  parishes  by  long  service  as 
to  wish  interment  amid  the  scenes  of  their 
labors. 

It  may  not  be  inappropriate,  having  viewed 
these  ministers  singly  in  their  several  parishes, 
if  we  take  a  look  more  closely  into  their  asso- 
ciational  gatherings  and  see  them  together ; 
though  it  will  be  very  hard  to  digest  the  con- 
tents of  three  leather-covered  volumes  into  a 
paragraph.  By  associational  vote  when  the 
division  was  made,  the  records  and  files  of 
papers,  etc.,  were  ordered  to  be  preserved  and 
consigned  to  the  care  of  the  South  Association. 
They  are  most  carefully  kept  in  the  vaults  of 
the  Stockbridge  bank,  and  with  something 
like  eagerness,  fascination,  and  awe  I  have 
gone  through  these  ancient  records,  glistening 
with  the  blotting  sand  which  still  adheres, 
yellowed  with  age,  and  containing  autographs 
of  many  of  these  olden  pastors.  The  Berk- 
shire Association  was  organized  in  1 763,  but 
for  thirty  years  the  records  were  not  kept ;  or 


Established  Church  of  Berkshire    315 

if  kept,  were  lost.  It  was  organized  with  the 
following  personnel :  The  Revs.  Jonathan 
Hubbard  of  Sheffield,  Thomas  Strong  of  New 
Marlborough,  A.  Bidwell  of  Tyringham,  Sam- 
uel Hopkins  of  Great  Barrington,  and  Stephen 
West.  Meetings  were  held  three  times  a 
year,  and  as  the  number  of  ministers  grew 
we  find  for  a  series  of  years  only  two  meetings 
a  year ;  but  it  must  be  remembered  that  the 
ministers  of  neighboring  parishes  used  to  have 
meetings  once  a  month  ;  certainly  in  the  vicin- 
ity of  New  Marlborough  in  Dr.  Catlin's  time. 

The  regular  meetings  of  the  Association 
were  almost  always  two-day  affairs,  and  scat- 
tered through  the  records  for  twoscore  years 
are  many  such  notes  as  this  :  "Adjourned  un- 
til 5  o'c.  to-morrow  morning  " ;  almost  always 
"  5  o'c.,"  sometimes  "  7  o'c.,"  and  once  till  sun 
"  is  ^  hour  high."  The  place  of  meeting  varied 
and  the  exercises  were  the  same  for  many, 
many  years  :  namely,  public  service  with  ser- 
mon, afterward  criticised,  discussion  of  some 
question  of  theology,  a  study  of  the  Bible  in 
course,  question  box  on  questions  of  disci- 
pline, experience  and  polity,  and  business- 
coupled  with  anniversary  meetings  of  various 
county  societies.  The  Association  was  a  sort 
of  appellate  court  for  the  churches,  and  was 


3*6  Lenox 

almost  always  busy  examining  and  licensing 
candidates.  It  had  in  after  years  a  regular 
yearly  narrative  of  the  state  of  the  churches. 
It  was  foremost  in  helping  various  causes, 
often  initiating  them  :  Bible,  temperance,  Sab- 
bath observance,  Sunday-school,  and  anti-slav- 
ery. It  made  recommendations  and  issued 
pastoral  letters  to  the  churches.  It  assigned 
pastoral  visits  to  the  churches,  making  out 
schedules  for  ministers  to  go  by  twos  to  vari- 
ous parishes,  for  pastoral  and  preaching  work. 
It  employed  itinerant  missionaries  for  the 
weak  and  feeble  churches.  It  inaugurated 
conferences  or  fellowship  meetings.  It  ap- 
pointed many  days  of  fasting  and  prayer  for 
spiritual  refreshment.  It  was  executive,  stu- 
dious, spiritual,  and  it  compelled  attendance 
of  members  by  exacting  excuses  for  absentee- 
ism before  the  whole  body. 

Many  interesting  minutes  could  be  brought 
to  view  from  the  old  records,  as  they  show 
the  state  of  thought  and  feeling  among  the 
"  watchmen  on  the  hills  of  Zion  "  regarding 
the  various  questions  which  swept,  like  cloud 
shadows,  across  these  vales  and  hills.  The 
change  in  relation  to  connection  between 
Churchand  State,  exempting  non-communicants 
of  one  order  from  taxation, — in  short  the  dis- 


Established  Church  of  Berkshire    317 

establishment  of  Congregationalism, — the  work 
of  missions  among  the  heathen,  the  temper- 
ance cause,  the  anti-slavery  movement — all 
these  questions  in  the  ethical  realm,  and  those 
in  the  civil  realm  from  the  Revolution  down 
show  a  state  of  mind,  as  revealed  by  these 
minutes,  at  once  noble  and  far-seeing.  I  think 
one  of  the  remarkable  things  is  the  sudden- 
ness and  thoroughness  of  the  temperance 
reformation  in  the  county.  Let  it  be  remem- 
bered that  drinking  was  universal,  the  sin  only 
lying  in  excess  :  that  Dr.  Shepard  and  Dr. 
West  and  good  and  holy  deacons  and  many 
of  the  rank  and  file  were  users  of  liquor ;  that 
the  Hinsdale  pews  were  sold  to  the  accom- 
paniment of  the  glass  that  cheers  and  inebri- 
ates ;  that  the  Sheffield  church-raising  had  a 
town  appropriation  of  "  three  barrels  of  beer 
and  twenty  gallons  of  rum  "  with  which  to  put 
up  its  sacred  timbers ;  that  in  Gordon  Dor- 
ranee's  ministry  of  thirty-nine  years  up  in 
Windsor  the  only  records  are  of  about  thirty 
church  meetings  or  so,  twenty-five  of  which 
are  of  discipline  for  drunkenness  ;  that  every 
sideboard  had  its  decanter  and  ministers  were 
accustomed  to  quaff  a  social  glass  at  the  pas- 
toral calls  ;  and  then  think  of  the  thorough- 
going character  of  that  reformation  which, 


318  Lenox 

through  the  examples  of  these  ministers  largely, 
was  wrought  in  the  county.  Our  fathers 
handled  with  dexterity  the  flip-iron  which  has 
entirely  gone  out  of  our  knowledge  with  the 
crane  and  the  pillion  ;  yet  that  flip-iron  was 
the  symbol  of  our  shame.  I  find  many  a 
minute  as  to  temperance  on  these  pages.  The 
first  that  I  discover  is  of  date  June  10,  1828, 
and  reads :  "  The  report  upon  the  subject  of 
temperance,  pledging  entire  abstinence  on  our 
own  part  and  recommending  the  same  to  all 
others,  was  accepted  and  ordered  to  be 
printed."  Seven  years  later  (1835)  tne  pledge 
is  renewed  and  recommended  again.  In  1851 
this  minute  appears:  "In  some  of  our  com- 
munities no  liquor  is  sold  openly  and  in  one 
none  is  openly  drank,  nor  can  a  drunkard  be 
found."  It  is  but  fair,  however,  to  state  that 
the  hold  of  strong  drink  was  not  so  relaxed 
that  every  community  was  a  unit  in  this  mat- 
ter. Lieutenant-Governor  Hull  of  Sandisfield, 
writes  in  1854  :  "  The  male  portion  of  our  cus- 
tomers, including  the  aged  minister,  indulged 
liberally  in  the  rations  of  strong  drink."  The 
minister  here  referred  to  purchased  his  liquor 
by  the  quart,  and  rejoiced  in  many  a  gracious 
season  of  revival,  too. 

The  impression,    I  am    quite  sure,  obtains 


Established  Church  of  Berkshire    319 

that  someway  the  religious  life  of  the  fathers 
and  of  the  time  in  which  they  lived  was  of  a 
higher  order  than  now.  An  impression  of 
that  sort  does  honor  to  our  affection,  but  is 
not,  I  venture  to  think,  quite  in  accord  with 
the  facts ;  at  least  if  we  may  judge  from  what 
our  fathers  themselves  said  concerning  the 
life  and  morals  of  their  own  age.  Their 
sermons  are  full  of  the  bitterest  arraignment 
of  the  world  in  which  they  lived ;  its  degen- 
eracy, its  lapse,  its  trend.  We  have  lauded 
"  the  good  old  times "  too  much  ;  though  I 
doubt  not  they  were  better  than  their  records 
and  sermons  make  them  out.  Read  Dr. 
Hopkins's  sermon  entitled  "  The  author's  fare- 
well to  the  world,"  preached  just  before  his 
death  in  1803  —  two  or  three  years  before, 
at  the  turn  of  the  centuries  ;  it  breathes  de- 
nunciation in  every  line,  and  seems  to  be 
modelled  after  the  most  fiery  invective  of  the 
minor  prophets.  Read  the  magazines  of  the 
period,  The  Panoplist  and  The  Evangelic 
Magazine,  published  in  the  first  decade  of  the 
nineteenth  century ;  Dr.  Catlin's  sermon  on 
a  fast-day  in  1812,  and  the  "  Records  "  of  the 
churches  themselves.  See  the  world  of  our 
fathers'  day  through  the  eyes  of  our  fathers 
as  revealed  in  their  sermons  and  letters,  and 


320  Lenox 

our  affection  will  not  usurp  the  place  of  our 
judgment.  The  world  is  improving,  like  good 
wine,  with  age.  We  live  in  better  days  than 
our  fathers  ;  and  our  sons  will  no  doubt  keep 
up  the  pleasant  fiction  that  ours  is  the  Golden 
Age,  and  theirs  the  Age  of  Stone ;  and  so  on 
and  on,  while  time  lasts  and  God  works  out 
His  purposes  despite  human  unbelief. 

I  wish  to  pass,  then,  directly  into  the  sub- 
ject which  in  the  most  signal  way  marks  the 
difference  between  the  age  of  our  fathers 
and  ours  ;  viz.,  the  theology  of  a  hundred 
years  ago,  and  less,  contrasted  with  the  belief 
in  the  churches  to-day.  I  think  few  of  us 
would  be  willing  to  assent  to  what  Macaulay 
says  about  theology, —  "  that  it  is  not  a  pro- 
gressive science  like  pharmacy,  geology,  or 
navigation  ;  and  a  Christian  of  the  nineteenth 
century  is  no  better  or  worse  off  than  a  Chris- 
tian of  the  fifth,  providing  each  is  possessed 
of  candor,  for  both  alike  have  the  Bible  in 
their  hands."  The  greatest  progress  imagina- 
ble is  seen  in  the  way  people  conceived  of 
truth  during  this  last  century,  and  I  pray  for 
that  wisdom  in  treating  this  subject  which 
Lowell  says  Emerson  had,  "who  took  down 
our  idols  with  so  much  grace  that  it  seemed 
an  act  of  worship."  Let  us  come  right  to 


Established  Church  of  Berkshire    321 

what  the  fathers  taught  about  God,  man,  and 
destiny. 

They  taught  that  God  hated  sinful  man, 
that  man  was  only  vile  in  His  sight,  and  that 
the  body  as  well  as  the  soul  of  the  sinner 
would  burn  in  real  fire  endlessly.  Dr.  Hop- 
kins begins  his  System  of  Divinity,  published 
in  1 793,  as  follows  : 

"  Mankind  needs  to  know  the  method  God  has  ap- 
pointed in  which  He  will  be  reconciled  to  them  "  ; 
and  a  little  farther  on  we  read,  "  this  displeasure,  anger, 
and  wrath  of  God  toward  the  sinner  is  just,  benevo- 
lent, and  kind "  ;  and  I  quote  again  :  "  He  who  has 
a  new  heart  must  be  a  friend  of  God  and  must  be 
pleased  with  His  infinitely  benevolent  character,  though 
he  has  not  a  thought  that  God  loves  him  ;  and  if 
he  could  know  that  God  designed,  for  His  own  glory 
and  the  general  good,  to  cast  him  into  endless  destruc- 
tion, this  would  not  make  him  cease  to  approve  of  His 
character  :  he  would  continue  to  be  a  friend  of  God." 

What  would  Dr.  Hopkins  have  said  if  he 
could  have  known  that  the  Church  a  hundred 
years  from  his  time  would  be  singing : 

"  O  Love  Divine  that  stooped  to  share 
Our  sharpest  pang,  our  bitterest  tear," 

and  that  we  would  be  throwing  all  the  weight 
of  our  emphasis  on  the  great  cardinal  doctrine 


322  Lenox 

of  God's  love  as  a  means  to  awaken  loyalty 
and  service  among  men  ? 

To-day  the  reconciliation  of  man  to  God 
has  taken  the  place  of  the  reconciliation  of 
God  to  men.  I  know  a  lady  —  she  is  still 
living — who  has  told  me  how  when  she 
joined  the  Church,  somewhere  about  1833, 
the  minister  asked  her,  "  Theresa,  are  you 
willing  to  be  damned  for  the  glory  of  God  ?  " 
and  she  said,  "  No,  sir."  Even  Mrs.  Edwards, 
the  wife  of  the  distinguished  Stockbridge 
preacher  of  old  time,  reluctantly  yet  eagerly 
accepted  the  idea  of  God's  Fatherhood  as  a 
new  revelation  to  her  soul,  when  the  prevalent 
doctrine  was  that  he  was  a  Sovereign,  a  "hard 
and  austere  Master,"  an  offended  and  un- 
reconciled Deity  having  a  sort  of  consuming 
hatred  for  the  human  race  ;  and  all  because 
through  one  man  came  sin. 

And  now  look  at  the  picture  of  that  "  first 
sin  "  in  Eden,  and  the  consequences  of  it  as 
pictured  upon  the  olden  page  ;  and  not  so  very 
long  ago,  either,  for  this  teaching  of  a  hundred 
years  ago  comes  way  down  well  into  the  second 
quarter  of  this  last  century.  It  is  incredible  that 
we  are  only  just  emerging  from  the  shadows. 
The  creation  of  the  world  in  six  literal  days, 
and,  as  Dr.  Catlin,  in  an  old  manuscript  ser- 


Established  Church  of  Berkshire    323 

mon  lying  before  me  says,  of  man  "  on  Satur- 
day at  sundown"  ;  the  bringing  of  the  universe 
into  shape  in  144  hours,  a  mighty,  instantane- 
ous work  of  the  great  Demiurge,  with  angels 
looking  on  and  singing  as  on  the  first  day  they 
saw  Europe,  Asia,  Africa,  and  America  rise 
out  of  the  waters,  and  all  this  "  at  the  autumnal 
equinox"  (see  Hopkins,  System  of  Divinity,  p. 
233)  ;  the  Paradise  of  our  first  parents,  in 
which,  before  their  sin,  serpents  WALKED,  for 
Dr.  Hopkins  takes  pains  to  tell  us  that  the 
serpent  who  tempted  Eve  "  had  an  erect  and 
very  beautiful  form,  and  had  nothing  of  the 
appearance  and  form  of  serpents  since  the  fall 
of  man,"  and  Dr.  Catlin  says  of  the  serpent, 
"  he  walked  erect  with  great  vivacity,  and  was 
the  most  lovely  and  beautiful  of  all  the  brutal 
creation,  until  he  was  doomed  after  the  fall  of 
man  to  go  upon  his  belly  and  lick  the  dust  of 
the  earth  "  ;  and  finally  the  sin  of  Eden  with 
the  "  revelation  of  the  plan  of  mercy  immedi- 
ately after  the  fall  of  man,  so  that  doubtless 
Adam  and  Eve  embraced  the  Saviour  and  the 
plan  of  redemption  by  his  blood  "  ; — how  primi- 
tive all  this  appears  to  us !  We  wonder  that 
only  yesterday,  so  to  speak,  we  believed  all 
this. 

Yet  this  theory  of  the  creation  and  fall  of 


324  Lenox 

man  is  only  trivial  compared  with  the  erro- 
neous and  mischievous  doctrines  built  upon  it. 
"Total  depravity"  followed,  then  original  sin, 
and  the  doctrines  of  the  "  Decrees,"  by  which 
God  was  said  to  damn  some  in  infancy.  Dr. 
Catlin  speaks  of  the  "  universal  sinfulness  of 
infants  "  :  "  infants  are  in  a  lost  and  perishing 
condition "  ;  and  farther  on  he  proceeds  to 
clinch  the  argument  by  this  same  doctrine  of 
"  original  and  innate  depravity  "  due  to  Adam's 
sin.  Is  it  any  wonder  that  the  fathers  com- 
plain of  "  deadness  and  unbelief"  in  their 
churches,  particularly  when  they  made  the  ac- 
ceptance of  these  doctrines  a  condition  of 
salvation  ?  Every  mother  bending  over  her 
sweetly  sleeping  babe  in  the  cradle  ought  to 
have  taken  counsel  of  her  heart  and  refused  to 
listen  to  such  counsel  from  these  pseudo-in- 
terpreters of  the  Divine  grace  and  nature. 
But  this  was  only  the  beginning,  the  first  step 
in  carrying  out  the  doctrine  of  "  total  de- 
pravity." Man  was  hated  of  God,  vile,  and  so 
despicable  in  God's  eyes  that  those  who  were 
"impenitent  and  unconverted"  could  do  noth- 
ing good  :  "  all  their  deeds  of  justice,  of  mercy 
and  charity,  are  perfectly  odious  in  the  sight  of 
a  holy  God"  (see  Catlin,  Compendium,  p.  195). 
"  Sinners  in  many  duties  are  constant  and  per- 


Established  Church  of  Berkshire    325 

severing :  the  external  duties  of  religion,  for 
example  ;  the  devotions  of  the  sanctuary,  read- 
ing of  Scriptures,  attending  the  Gospel  min- 
istry, meetings  for  prayer,  and  so  on  ;  they 
embrace  and  defend  the  doctrines  of  the  Bible  ; 
even  engage  in  family  worship  and  the  relig- 
ious training  of  their  children,  well  knowing 
these  things  are  of  infinite  importance  to  their 
children,  but  all  these  external  duties  and  sacri- 
fices of  the  wicked  are  an  abomination  to  the 
Lord"  ;  yet  they  "must  not  renounce  the  ex- 
ternals of  religion,  lest  they  become  barbari- 
ans." "  A  sinner  ought  to  pray,  but  his  prayer 
is  an  abomination  unto  the  Lord  "  ;  whatever 
good  he  does  "is  sin" ;  yet  he  must  not  omit 
doing  good,  even  if  it  be  "  perfectly  odious  in 
the  sight  of  a  holy  God." 

Now  it  is  very  evident  that  this  conception 
of  man  which  our  fathers  entertained  would 
lead  to  a  doctrine  of  "  conversion "  which 
would  be  little  less  than  awful.  What  it  was 
many  of  us  remember,  or  have  heard.  In 
some  instances  men  were  weeks  and  months 
in  the  grip  of  melancholia  until  they  could  get 
an  overwhelming  sense  of  their  guilt  and  ap- 
prove God's  wrath  ;  and  this  was  encouraged. 
It  was  a  trophy  of  true  conversion  to  be  able 
to  have  some  shuddering  experience  to  relate, 


326  Lenox 

and  the  magazines  of  the  day  are  filled  with 
these  accounts.  Every  man's  sin  was  a  sin 
against  an  infinite  God  and  therefore  an  infinite 
sin,  no  matter  how  small  it  was ;  and  because 
it  was  an  infinite  sin  demanded  endless  pun- 
ishment. God  was  angry  with  men,  and  if 
He  were  to  forgive  He  must  have  infinite  satis- 
faction for  His  wrath  ;  and  so  He  appeased 
His  wrath  as  He  watched  the  sufferings  and 
blood  of  Calvary.  His  vengeance  demanded 
blood,  and  so  Jesus  turns  away  wrath,  vindicates 
broken  law,  and  the  sinner  gets  off. 

In  the  former  days  everything,  incarnation, 
atonement,  conversion,  regeneration,  must  be 
worked  out  by  a  sort  of  primal  conception 
that  man  was  not  loved  by  God,  that  on  the 
contrary  he  was  the  one  object  on  which  the 
hate  of  God  was  focussed.  And  the  wonder 
is  how  men  read  the  Parable  of  the  Prodigal 
Son,  for  example.  It  seems  as  if  they  must 
have  stifled  all  their  nobler  feelings  as  in- 
terpreters of  God ;  indeed  they  did  do  just 
that.  One  minister,  living  in  West  Stock- 
bridge,  the  Rev.  Mr.  Camp,  did  venture  to 
deny  that  man  was  so  bad  as  the  prevailing 
theology  made  him  out,  but  he  was  "  labored 
with,"  then  suspended  ;  and  finally  he  "  re- 
tracted." The  "plan"  was  inexorable.  To 


Established  Church  of  Berkshire    327 

disbelieve  the  ruling  creed  was  to  invite  ex- 
communication ;  and  Hopkins  expressly  de- 
clares that  the  Church  must  treat  the  man 
thus  cut  off  "with  peculiar  neglect  and  slight, 
avoid  his  company  at  all  times,  and  never  so 
much  as  eat  with  him  at  a  common  table." 
The  story  of  John  Ward,  Preacher,  is  sober 
realism.  And  as  if  that  were  not  enough  Dr. 
Hopkins  consigns  all  those  who  differ  with 
him  to  endless  destruction  ;  and  what  he 
means  by  hell  is  real  fire  as  well  as  the  bitter 
anguish  of  remorse.  I  quote  : 

"  God  will  render  a  future  separation  of  the  bodies  and 
the  souls  of  the  wicked  impossible,  and  so  form  the 
body,  as  that  it  shall  continue  in  full  life,  and  with  quick 
sense  in  union  with  the  soul,  in  the  hottest  fire  that  can 
be  imagined,  or  exist,  through  endless  ages.  .  .  .  God 
will  show  his  power  in  the  punishment  of  the  wicked  by 
strengthening  and  upholding  their  bodies  and  souls  in  suf- 
fering torments  which  otherwise  would  be  intolerable.' 
{System  of  Divinity,  vol.  2,  p.  253). 

And  this,  he  taught,  was  what  all  must  come 
to  who  did  n't  hold  the  faith  as  he  taught  it, 
no  matter  how  excellent  and  exceptionally 
moral  their  lives!  To-day  not  only  his  doc- 
trine of  a  physical  hell,  but  an  endless  hell  as 
well,  is  repulsive  to  the  Christian  conscious- 
ness ;  and  is  cast  off. 


328  Lenox 

I  cannot  dwell  on  our  fathers'  emphasis  of 
the  "  Decrees  of  God  "  ;  of  election  and  pret- 
erition  ;  of  the  sovereignty  of  the  great  God, 
who  disposed  all  events  in  the  arbitrary  way 
by  which  His  glory  would  be  best  subserved  ; 
or  of  the  doctrine  of  the  perseverance  of  the 
saints ;  but  one  can  but  do  these  spiritual 
teachers  honor  for  their  extreme  humility  in 
rather  timidly  "  entertaining  a  hope,"  only,  of 
their  salvation.  Their  stern  doctrines  smote 
them  with  godly  fear  and  humbleness  of  mind. 
There  never  was  a  godlier  race  ;  sure  they 
were  right,  yet  never  sure  they  themselves 
were  saved,  though  we  know  they  had  an 
"  abundant  entrance "  ministered  to  them  as 
they  "  crossed  the  bar  "  into  the  beatific  har- 
bors. I  cannot  dwell  here  on  their  concep- 
tion of  Jesus  Christ,  whom  they  robbed  of  his 
humanity,  making  him  forbidding  in  his  holi- 
ness, a  Deity  on  earth  in  whom  temptation 
found  no  response,  a  Teacher  of  an  impossible 
human  goodness,  a  Being  more  in  league  with 
heaven  than  in  sympathy  with  mortals ;  but 
who  can  withhold  from  our  fathers  their  just 
meed  of  praise  for  the  Christ-spirit  they  so 
largely  expressed?  If  they  regarded  a  Sab- 
bath-breaker as  worse  than  an  adulterer  or 
murderer  —  and  they  did  (see  Catlin,  p.  217)  ; 


Established  Church  of  Berkshire    329 

if  the  "  Records  of  these  Churches  "  are  filled 
with  quarrels  and  trials ;  I  think  we  do  wrong 
not  to  see  how  noble  a  motive  often  animated 
their  sternness  toward  their  fellow-men,  viz., 
to  save  their  souls  from  the  inevitable  and 
terrific  fate,  unmodified,  unceasing,  awaiting 
the  wrong-doer, —  and  this,  no  matter  how 
mistaken  we  see  it  to  be  now,  was  the  Christ- 
spirit.  I  cannot  dwell  now  on  their  concep- 
tion of  the  work  of  "  Foreign  Missions,"  of 

o 

which  they  thought  as  saving  the  heathen 
from  an  impending  fate  because  they  did  not 
know  of  Christ  —  a  work  they  prosecuted  as 
life-savers  the  rescue  of  men  from  conflagra- 
tion or  shipwreck,  because  they  felt  no  heathen 
could  be  saved  without  personally  knowing 
Him  of  whom  they  had  never  even  heard  !  But 
shall  we  see  the  mistake  in  their  idea  of  "  For- 
eign Missions"  and  not  see  their  motive,  the 
sublimity  of  their  hope  and  sacrifices  in  estab- 
lishing a  work  so  momentous,  so  magnificent, 
so  lasting?  If  they  reasoned  out  "Trinity" 
on  the  basis  of  a  text  not  in  the  Revision,— 
"  There  are  three  that  bare  record,"  which 
Hopkins  makes  an  "  express  declaration  "  of 
the  doctrine,  and  Catlin  says  "  states  the  mat- 
ter very  clearly,"  —  we  may  smile  but  we  do 
not  therefore  read  out  the  term  "Trinity" 


33°  Lenox 

from  our  modern  theology,  though  we  put  an 
altogether  different  meaning  into  it.  And 
who  can  read  this  passage  from  Hopkins 
without  honoring  his  simple  reading  of  the 
Scripture  : 

"  The  spirits  of  departed  saints  when  they  leave  the 
body  do  not  go  into  some  dark  corner  of  the  universe, 
or  out  of  sight  of  heaven,  of  Christ,  his  Church,  and  this 
world,  but  they  rise  into  light  and  take  a  station  from 
which  they  can  see  all  these  things  and  all  worlds,  and 
have  a  perfect  discerning  without  the  least  cloud  or 
darkness."  (Hopkins,  vol.  2,  p.  223.) 

Of  course  our  fathers  believed  in  the  resurrec- 
tion of  the  body  —  now  pretty  generally  given 
up  ;  and  I  think  this  passage  from  Hopkins's 
"  Farewell  to  the  World "  is  rather  a  unique 
expression  of  the  former  belief  concerning  the 
"  Last  Judgment"  :  "  I  am  sure  to  meet  not 
only  all  who  are  now  in  the  world,  but  all  the 
countless  millions  who  ever  have  lived,  or 
shall  exist  hereafter  to  the  end  of  the  world  at 
the  day  of  judgment,  when  I  shall  know  the 
character  of  every  individual  person  "  (Ser- 
mons,  p.  358).  Dear,  dear!  And  as  if  it  were 
not  enough  to  picture  in  so  realistic  a  way 
that  "  Day  of  Wrath,"  and  frame  a  mighty 
philosophy  of  human  belief,  conduct,  and  des- 


Established  Church  of  Berkshire    331 

tiny,  Dr.  Hopkins  plays  the  seer,  and  says 
that 

"  the  sixth  vial  is  now  running  and  began  to  be  poured 
out  at  the  beginning  of  the  eighteenth  century,  or  some 
years  before,  and  will  run  some  part  of  the  nineteenth 
century,  perhaps  near  fifty  years  of  it.  ...  And 
then  the  '  seventh  and  last  vial,'  the  most  dreadful  calam- 
ities and  destructions  will  be  poured  out,  ushering  in 
the  millennium." 

Nine  pages  of  Dr.  Hopkins's  System  (vol.  2,  p. 
290-299)  are  filled  to  prove  that  the  Sabbath 
begins  at  sundown  ;  one  of  his  sermons  is  de- 
voted— the  one  entitled  his  "  valedictory  "  —  to 
a  general  wail  and  denunciation,  in  which  the 
only  thing  which  has  any  vein  of  cheerfulness 
to  his  mind  is  this,  that  God  will  make  his 
(Hopkins's)  system  of  thought  to  stand  :  "  I 
stand  as  a  brazen  wall,  unhurt  and  not  moved 
by  all  the  shafts  of  opposition  and  reproach 
which  have  been  levelled  at  me,  and  at  the 
system  of  truth  and  religion  I  have  espoused, 
being  assured  it  will  stand  forever." 

Scarce  a  hundred  years  have  elapsed,  and 
lo !  we  look  to-day  upon  the  ruins  of  that 
system  known  in  religious  thought  as  "  Hop- 
kinsianism."  Its  author,  he  himself  tells  us, 
was  regarded  as  "  narrow  and  bigoted  in  his 
sentiments."  The  Berkshire  ministry  of  to-day 


332  Lenox 

has  broken  away  from  his  dogmatic  chains, 
yet  it  reverences  Hopkins  as  a  man  and  as  a 
reformer,  but  not  as  a  teacher  of  truth.  The 
catholic  and  broad  spirit  began  to  overspread 
the  face  of  things  soon  after  he  died,  coming 
to  us  from  Coleridge,  not  to  go  farther  back, 
then  through  Maurice,  Robertson,  Tennyson, 
and  Browning  on  the  other  side,  and  through 
Channing,  Bushnell,  Beecher,  and  Hunger  on 
this  side  ;  the  great  law  of  evolution  and  the 
origin  of  species  through  Darwin,  Spencer, 
and  Huxley  found  place  in  human  thought ; 
the  telegraph  made  all  the  world  one,  and  so 
broadened  our  horizons  ;  education  has  cleared 
away  the  cobwebs  from  our  seeing  ;  and  above 
and  beyond  everything  else  the  spirit  of  God 
has  been  brooding  quietly  over  the  mind  and 
heart  of  man  ;  and  so  it  is  not  in  the  power 
of  any  old  system  of  truth  to  hold  us.  That 
power  to  hold  lies  in  Truth,  not  in  a  system 
of  truth,  and  Truth  is  of  God,  a  "  system  "  is 
of  men.  Hopkins's  system  contained  a  great 
deal  of  sublime  truth  that  will  remain  ;  but  its 
reactionary  Calvinism  was  its  main  feature, 
and  this  has  been  sloughed  off. 

Sergeant,  Edwards,  Hopkins,  Catlin,  Allen, 
Judson,  Shepard,  West,  Hyde,  Humphrey, 
Field  —  I  am  sure  as  I  speak  the  names,  they 


Established  Church  of  Berkshire    333 

evoke  a  response  from  our  hearts,  prompt, 
grateful,  and  enduring,  and  more  thrilling  than 
the  name  of  many  a  hero  of  Jewish  and 
sacred  story.  Through  faith  they  came  into 
this  Berkshire  wilderness,  and  pioneered  ; 
through  faith  they  taught  the  Mohican  In- 
dians they  found  here,  and  for  fifty  years 
gave  these  friendly  savages  a  practical  Chris- 
tian education  ;  through  faith  in  knowledge 
they,  all  college  men  and  by  a  very  large 
majority  from  Yale,  reared  here  their  monu- 
ment, Williams  College,  their  creation,  their 
care,  and  the  loved  object  of  their  sacrifices, 
when  to  sacrifice  was  to  yield  almost  their 
very  life-blood  ;  through  faith  they  planted 
churches,  and  cared  for  them  in  long  and 
happy  and  useful  pastorates  ;  through  faith 
in  their  country's  cause  they  offered  them- 
selves on  the  altar  of  sacrifice  in  the  nation's 
peril,  Avery  of  Windsor  leading  a  Berkshire 
regiment  to  Boston  after  the  news  of  Lex- 
ington came  by  fast  couriers  to  the  county, 
and  Allen  leading  another  to  Bennington 
where  the  "  fighting  parson  "  shot  as  well  as 
prayed  and  ministered  to  the  dying  ;  through 
faith  they  broke  the  rocks  and  felled  the 
trees  and  tilled  the  soil,  many  of  them  toilers 
with  their  hands  ;  through  faith  they  carried 


334  Lenox 

on  in  their  corporate  capacity  the  vast  inter- 
ests of  this  region  so  far  as  concerned  religion, 
morals,  missions,  education  ;  through  faith 
they  wrought  wonders,  preached  the  truth  as 
they  conceived  it,  lived  pattern  lives  full  of 
the  spirit  of  their  Master  and  Lord,  minis- 
tered to  the  needy,  and  saw  their  work  often 
mightily  prosper.  And  these  all,  having  "  wit- 
nessed a  good  confession,"  died  as  they  had 
lived  ;  and  just  outside  the  door  of  how  many 
a  village  church  in  this  county,  or  in  the 
quiet  cemetery  not  far  away,  is  the  precious 
dust  of  these  venerated  fathers,  their  graves 
the  sacred  shrines  of  the  children  and  great- 
grandchildren of  those  to  whom  they  minis- 
tered. Dr.  Shepard's  grave  at  Lenox  is 
hardly  a  step  from  the  church-door  he  so 
often  entered,  and  almost  on  the  exact  spot 
where,  as  a  mere  boy,  he  was  inducted  into 
the  sacred  office  of  pastor,  at  a  memorable 
open-air  service  in  1795.  And  here  is  the 
inscription  on  a  stone  in  a  quiet  corner  of  the 
Stockbridge  cemetery : 

"  Here  lyes 

the  Body  of  the  Rev.  Mr.  John  Sergeant 
who  dyed  the  27th  Day  of  July  A.  D.  1749 
in  the  fortieth  year  of  his  age. 


Established  Church  of  Berkshire    335 

Where  is  that  pleasing  form  I  ask  ?    Thou  canst  not  show. 
He 's  not  within   false  stone  there 's   nought  but  dust 

below. 
And  where  is  that  pious  soul,  that  thinking,  conscious 

mind  ? 

Wilt   thou  pretend    vain    cypher   that 's   with    thee    in- 
shrined  ? 

Alas  my  friends,  not  here  with  thee,  that  I  can  find, 
Here  's  not  a  Sergeant's  body,  nor  a  Sergeant's  mind, 
I  '11  seek  him  hence,  for  all  's  alike  deception  here, 
I  '11  go  to  Heaven  and  shall  find  my  Sergeant  there." 

I  want  if  I  can  to  bring  up  one  or  two  of 
these  men,  and  get  a  look  at  them  in  flesh 
and  blood.  Miss  Sedgwick  in  her  tales  and 
sketches  has  left  us  many  a  portrait  of  Stephen 
West,  who  was  just  finishing  his  pastorate  at 
Stockbridge  as  she  was  reaching  the  thresh- 
hold  of  her  literary  career  ;  and  it  may  not  be 
amiss  to  notice  that  what  often  and  often  has 
happened,  happened  here.  We  would  not  have 
had  Miss  Catherine  Sedgwick's  charming  stories 
arraigning  the  awful,  the  dry  and  barren  theol- 
ogy of  her  day  if  there  had  been  no  theology  to 
arraign.  It  was  the  teaching  of  West  and 
Shepard — the  one  the  pastor  in  the  home  of 
Catherine's  girlhood,  Stockbridge ;  and  the 
other  in  the  home  of  her  womanhood,  Lenox 
—and  of  such  as  they  that  gave  us  A  New 
England  Tale,  which  in  its  day  was  almost  as 


336  Lenox 

popular  as  Uncle  Toms  Cabin  in  its  day,  or  as 
Ben  Hur  in  ours.  And  yet  Miss  Sedgwick 
loved  Dr.  West  as  a  man,  for  he  was  vastly 
better  than  his  system,  for  she  says,  "  beneath 
a  stern  and  precise  exterior,  he  was  social, 
tender,  cheerful,  with  a  disposition  like  sun- 
shine, warm  and  genial."  Every  morning  he 
greeted  each  member  of  his  family  with  "  good 
morning  prefaced  with  a  broad  sunny  smile." 
He  was  an  eminent  theologian,  having  always 
in  his  household  some  student  to  educate  for 
the  ministry  ;  a  very  pious,  rigorously  precise, 
man  ;  an  indefatigable  student ;  rigidly  Hop- 
kinsian  in  his  theology ;  and  a  man  of  tremen- 
dous influence.  And  yet  I  am  bound  to  say 
that  I  think  he  rather  "  lorded  it  over  God's 
heritage."  A  widow  who  was  a  member  of 
his  church  married  an  immoral,  unchristian 
man,  and  was  excommunicated  ;  a  council  was 
called,  but  Dr.  West,  then  a  man  of  forty,  de- 
fended his  action  in  a  published  sermon  I 
have  just  read  on  "  The  duty  of  Christians  to 
marry  only  in  the  Lord."  The  arguments  are 
not  worth  consideration  to-day  ;  though  doubt- 
less in  their  day  were  plausible  with  many 
because  the  skilful  advocate  tried  to  bring  the 
Scriptures  to  his  defence. 

But  let  me  call  up  before  you  two  other  men  : 


Established  Church  of  Berkshire    33? 

Dr.  Catlin  of  New  Marlborough,  the  author  of 
a  popular  work  on  theology  ;  and  Mr.  Collins 
of  Lanesborough, — both  Yale  men.  Here  is 
the  way  Dr.  Catlin  is  described  :  "  Of  medium 
height,  not  fleshy  but  strongly  made  ;  of  grave, 
manly  countenance,  and  a  kindly  bow  of  the 
olden  time  for  all  whom  he  met.  Dressed 
always  in  black  ;  short  clothes  buckled  at  the 
knee ;  a  white  stock  buckled  behind ;  hat 
turned  up  at  side  and  behind."  It  is  said  that 
he  never  laughed  but  once  in  his  lifetime.  One 
likes  to  imagine  what  that  one  joke  could 
have  been.  Mr.  Collins  is  thus  pictured : 
"  Tall,  erect,  quick  in  his  movements,  and 
wore  to  the  close  of  his  life  the  ministerial 
wig  and  three-cornered  hat.  He  expected  and 
exacted  a  bow  froiri  every  child  he  met."  It 
may  be  remarked  in  passing  that  Mr.  Collins 
as  a  loyalist  was  profoundly  incensed  at  his 
neighbor,  Mr.  Allen  of  Pittsfield,  the  "fight- 
ing parson,"  the  intense  patriot,  and  a  Demo- 
crat of  the  Democrats,  all  the  rest  of  his 
ministerial  brethren  being  Federalists  but  one, 
Judson  of  Sheffield.  Mr.  Collins,  however, 
took  it  upon  himself  to  be  so  severe  on  "  Par- 
son "  Allen,  that  the  town  of  Pittsfield  voted 
to  ask  Mr.  Collins  to  desist  from  his  course  of 
"  censuring  and  disapproving  their  reverend 


Lenox 


pastor  "  ;  and  indeed  his  own  town  of  Lanes- 
borough  condemned  him  for  his  Tory  senti- 
ments. 

Let  us  take  another  couple  of  these  olden 
ministers,  Shepard  of  Lenox,  and  Hyde  of 
Lee,  —  exact  opposites  :  —  Hyde,  a  reactionary 
orthodox  ;  Shepard,  orthodox,  very,  but  pro- 
gressive :  Hyde,  a  man  of  sad  and  serious 
demeanor,  never  laughing,  or  if  he  did  once  in 
a  great  while,  never  loud  enough  to  be  heard 
in  the  next  room  ;  Shepard,  a  teller  of  funny 
stories  and  always  jolly,  though  he  knew  when 
to  be  dignified  :  Hyde,  a  man  to  whom  Dr. 
Backus  once  said,  "  You  never  have  anything 
to  repent  of  "  ;  Shepard  doing,  I  presume,  a 
hundred  things  a  day  he  felt  sorry  for  :  Hyde, 
a  close,  quiet  manuscript  preacher  with  almost 
no  gestures,  and  Shepard  an  extemporaneous, 
vehement  one,  though  both  preached  to  a 
churchful  :  one  having  a  ministry  of  forty 
years  and  a  few  months  in  Lee,  and  the  other 
fifty  years  and  a  few  months  in  the  county 
seat,  preaching  to  lawyers,  students  and  faculty, 
and  his  own  distinguished  and  cultured  parish- 
ioners. Or,  take  another  two,  Allen  of 
Pittsfield,  and  Judson  of  Sheffield,  both  the 
intensest  kind  of  Jeffersonian  Democrats, 
when  their  brother-ministers  were  regarding 


The  Rev.  Samuel  She  par  d,  D.D., 

Pastor  Congregational  Church,  Lenox,  Mass.     {1795-1846.} 


Established  Church  of  Berkshire    339 

Thomas  Jefferson  as  anti-Christ,  the  enemy  of 
religion,  and  the  defamer  of  God  and  all  that 
was  good.  Yet  even  Allen  and  Judson  differed 
markedly  in  the  emphasis  they  laid  on  their 
political  convictions  in  public.  Judson,  as 
intense  a  Democrat  as  Allen,  never  mentioned 
his  politics  even  in  conversation,  except  at 
home  or  among  congenial  partisans  who 
thought  as  he  did.  Allen  took  the  stump  in 
exciting  periods  of  great  public  questions ; 
finally  rent  his  own  church  in  twain,  and  when 
he  died  the  other  ministers  were  a  little  scant 
in  courtesy  to  his  memory.  He  had  a  pleas- 
ant, affectionate  countenance,  which  took  on  a 
most  benignant  expression  in  the  pulpit.  He 
read  his  sermons  from  manuscript  in  short- 
hand, having  himself  devised  his  own  system 
of  stenography. 

To  Sergeant,  Hopkins  and  Edwards,  all 
Yale  men,  I  have  already  sufficiently  referred. 
Sergeant  lives  on  the  pages  of  the  great 
missionary  record  of  all  time.  Hopkins  and 
Edwards  rank  with  the  Augustines  and  Cal- 
vins  of  the  Christian  Church  in  all  ages.  Of 
Dr.  Heman  Humphrey  of  Pittsfield,  or  of  Dr. 
David  Dudley  Field,  two  other  Yale  men, 
only  passing  mention  can  be  made  : — the  first, 
one  of  the  best  known  of  college  presidents 


34°  Lenox 

(president  of  Amherst  College  1823-45);  and 
the  second,  the  historian  of  Berkshire  and 
the  father  of  a  most  remarkable  family,  dis- 
tinguished alike  in  American  jurisprudence, 
science,  and  letters, — Stephen,  long-time  a  jus- 
tice on  the  bench  of  the  United  States  Supreme 
Court;  David  Dudley,  Jr.,  an  authority  on 
international  law  and  a  most  effective  advocate; 
Cyrus  W.,  whose  name  will  be  imperishably 
associated  with  the  Atlantic  cable;  and  Henry 
M.,  minister,  editor,  and  traveller,  whose  books 
are  widely  read.  The  Rev.  Dr.  Henry  M. 
Field  is  now  passing  the  evening  of  his  days 
in  his  beloved  Stockbridge. 

The  Congregational  Church  was  disestab- 
lished throughout  Massachusetts  in  1834,  up 
to  which  time  all  citizens  were  supposed  to  be 
taxed  for  its  support,  unless  they  had  "  certifi- 
cated," i.  e.,  obtained  permission  from  the 
proper  town  authorities  to  attend  worship 
elsewhere  by  certifying  their  preference  for 
other  religious  denominations.  Some  availed 
themselves  of  this  privilege  to  escape  the  rigors 
of  the  dominant  theology ;  more  to  escape 
taxation  for  the  support  of  the  local  church ; 
and  thus  other  churches  than  the  Congre- 
gational, with  splendid  histories  and  increasing 
efficiency,  came  into  existence  on  New  England 


Established  Church  of  Berkshire    34 1 

soil.  My  space  avails  not  to  write  of  them 
though  the  lustre  of  brilliant  achievement 
crowns  their  efforts  and  brightens  the  daily 
living  of  all.  I  have  written  of  one  Church 
only,  because  the  thread  of  its  working  is  a 
very  distinct  and  integral  strand  in  the  fabric 
of  state  in  the  days  when  the  Congregational 
was  the  established  Church  of  New  England  ; 
and  I  have  confined  myself  to  the  workings  of 
that  Church  in  Berkshire. 


IX 


EPITAPHS  IN   BERKSHIRE  CHURCH- 
YARDS 

I  CANNOT  quite  say  with  Whittier,  at  least 
so  far  as  Berkshire  is  concerned,  that  "our 
fathers  set  apart  to  Death  the  dreariest  spot 
in  all  the  land."  The  Lenox  Cemetery  has  the 
choicest  landscapes,  evoking  the  admiring  gaze 
of  thousands  who  annually  visit  it  simply  for 
its  magnificent  scenery.  It  lies  on  the  summit 
of  the  hill  adjacent  to  the  old  church,  and  its 
long-time  pastor,  Dr.  Shepard,  who  minis- 
tered here  for  half  a  century,  is  buried  just 
outside  the  door.  It  is  only  fair  to  say,  how- 
ever, that  to  test  the  truthfulness  of  the  poet's 
description  we  need  to  divest  this  exalted  and 
celebrated  burial-place  of  its  modern  features, 
and  see  it  as  it  was  before  "  summer-places  " 
grew  up  around  it ;  a  "  lonesome  acre,"  doubt- 
less, dreary  and  bleak.  If  to-day  then  these 

342 


Berkshire  Epitaphs  343 

ancient  burying-grounds  have  an  inviting  ap- 
pearance, it  is  unquestionably  attributable 
quite  as  much  to  a  change  of  belief  concerning 
death  as  to  a  change  of  sentiment  concerning 
the  adornment  of  cemeteries.  The  grim  and 
gloomy  grip  of  a  stern  theology  has  left  its 
palpable  impress  on  the  moss-grown  slabs ; 
the  sheer  and  downright  contradiction  to  the 
"  larger  hope "  of  the  present.  Betwixt  the 
theology  of  Watts  and  that  of  Whittier  is 
fixed  a  deep  gulf ;  from  Edwards  and  Hop- 
kins to  Bushnell  and  Munger  is  a  transition 
from  the  tomb  into  the  living  realities  of  a 
beautiful  May  morning. 

It  will  be  impossible  for  me  to  present  with 
any  completeness  the  quaint  epitaphs  in  Berk- 
shire churchyards  ;  I  must  confine  myself  to 
types.  I  may  say  by  way  of  preface  that  I 
do  not  think  so  rich  a  "find"  is  to  be  ex- 
pected in  Berkshire  as  in  the  older  portions  of 
the  State.  Still  the  age  of  epitaph-making 
had  not  passed  away,  and  the  "  grave  and  the 
gay,"  the  hortatory  and  the  laudatory,  the 
sentimental  and  the  practical,  the  despairing 
and  the  hopeful,  the  sincere  and  the  hypocriti- 
cal are  all  here.  I  regret  that  in  the  limits  of 
this  short  chapter  I  shall  only  be  able  to  present 
typical  specimens,  but  I  shall  be  abundantly 


344  Lenox 

satisfied  if  I  can  induce  any  to  turn  aside  from 
their  excursions  here  and  there  through  the 
county  in  order  to  decipher  the  memorials  of 
another  age. 

"  For  thus  our  fathers  testified, — 

That  he  might  read  who  ran,  — 
The  emptiness  of  human  pride, 
The  nothingness  of  man. 

"  They  dared  not  plant  the  grave  with  flowers, 

Nor  dress  the  funeral  sod, 
Where,  with  a  love  as  deep  as  ours, 
They  left  their  dead  with  God." 

To  begin,  then,  with  some  of  those  com- 
monplaces which  show  the  poverty  of  intellec- 
tuality, the  Berkshire  burying-grounds  have 
their  full  share  of  those  crude  jingles  designed 
to  remind  the  beholder  of  his  mortality.  They 
are  to  be  found  throughout  the  whole  region, 
such  as : 

"  Behold,  my  friends,  as  you  pass  by, 
This  stone  informs  you  where  I  lie  ; 
As  I  am  now  soon  you  must  be, 
Prepare  to  die  and  follow  me." 

or  this : 

"  Friends,  nor  [sic\  physicians  could  not  save 
This  mortal  body  from  the  grave, 
Nor  can  the  grave  confine  me  here, 
When  Jesus  calls  I  must  appear." 


Berkshire  Epitaphs  345 

or  this : 

"  Nor  sex  nor  age  can  death  defy; 
Think,  mortal,  what  it  is  to  die." 

These  are  the  common  epitaphs,  often  asso- 
ciated with  winged  angels'  heads  and  draped 
urns  sculptured  on  the  stone,  perhaps  now  and 
then  having,  in  addition,  the  motto  "  Nascen- 
tes  Morimur,"  to  intensify  the  depressing  sen- 
timent in  the  vernacular. 

Here  are  two  epitaphs  to  babies,  the  first  a 
babe  of  nine  hours,  who  died  1 799  : 

"  Ye  active  babes  and  children  all ! 
Behold  the  scene  of  children's  fall, 
My  day  was  short,  my  hours  few, 
And  bid  this  world  and  all  adieu  "  ; 

and  this,  from  another  burying-ground,  reveal- 
ing a  resignation  hard  and  unnatural : 

"  Happy  the  babe  who  privileged  by  fate 
To  shorten  labor,  and  a  lighter  weight, 
Received  but  yesterday  the  gift  of  breath, 
Ordered  to-morrow  to  return  to  death." 

It  is  comforting  to  read  as  a  firm  dissent 
from  the  theology  of  the  times,  when,  by  the 
"decree"  of  preterition,  it  was  asserted  that 
"  hell  was  paved  with  the  skulls  of  infants  not 
a  span  long,"  this  mother's  assurance,  engraved 
on  another  stone  in  a  Berkshire  churchyard  : 


346  Lenox 

"  I  know  my  babe  is  blest." 

Rash  woman  she  to  defy  the  "  doctors  in  the 
temple"  and  court  the  charge  of  heresy  from 
her  friends  and  neighbors.  Oliver  Wendell 
Holmes  says  Jonathan  Edwards  must  have 
read  that  invitation  of  Jesus  to  children,  "  Suf- 
fer the  little  vipers  to  come  unto  me,  and  for- 
bid them  not,"  and  I  feel  very  sure  so  triumphant 
an  exclamation  as  this  parent's  was  not  suffered 
to  pass  unchallenged. 

A  death  in  youth  or  in  middle  life  or  from  ac- 
cident was  an  opportunity  not  to  be  lost,  and 
many  are  the  stones  which  narrate  in  compact 
detail  the  actual  circumstances  by  which  the 
deceased  lost  his  life,  with  sundry  moral  reflec- 
tions based  on  the  same.  Sometimes  one  sees 
on  the  Berkshire  roads  the  very  spot  on  which 
a  fatal  accident  occurred  marked  by  a  stone. 
Here  is  one  on  the  road  from  Lenox  to  Lee  : 

"  On  this  spot  was  found  the  lifeless  corpse  of 
Mr.  D.  Blossom  of  Lenox,  May  8,  1814,  in  the 
22d  year  of  his  age.  Walking  here  he  was  sud- 
denly called  into  eternity  without  any  earthly 
friend  to  console  him  in  his  last  moment  or  to 
close  his  dying  eyes.  Reader,  pause  and  con- 
sider the  vast  importance  of  being  prepared  to 
meet  thy  God.  For  thou  knowest  not  the 
time,  the  place,  nor  the  manner  of  thy  death." 


Berkshire  Epitaphs  347 

Here  is  another  inscription  on  the  slab  to  the 
memory  of  a  man  in  middle  life  : 

"  Repent,  repent  now  you  have  time 
For  I  was  taken  in  my  prime." 

And  here  is  this  rather  unexpected  philosophy 
from  the  lips  of  a  youth  who  died  1791  : 

"  In  the  twenty-third  year  of  my  age 
I  quit  this  tirsom  [j/V]  pilgrimage." 

Bad  spelling,  omitted  letters  and  words  in- 
dicated by  carets,  and  non-syllabic  division  of 
words  at  the  ends  of  lines  are  to  be  found  in 
all  the  Berkshire  churchyards,  but  how  far 
these  things  reflect  on  the  average  educational 
standards  of  the  age  and  how  far  on  the  gen- 
eral schooling  of  the  stone-cutters  alone  cannot 
be  entirely  determined  from  these  epitaphs. 

Here  is  one  (1796)  : 

"  Cum  all  you  living  that  me  survive 
Unto  these  lines  attend 
Walk  in  the  paths  of  piece  and  truth 
And  piece  shall  be  your  end." 

Here  is  another  (1798)  : 

"  O  may  this  be  your  happy  case 
That  he  who  gives  you  length  of  days 
May  raise  you  to  his  corts  above 
There  to  pertake  of  boundless  love." 


Lenox 


The  romance  of  the  Berkshire  epitaphs  is  a 
story  all  by  itself.  I  give  one.  It  is  the 
lament  of  a  young  widow  : 

"  Hervey  with  thee  I  'd  walk  the  narrow  road 
That  leads  far  hence  to  yonder  blest  abode. 
Grant  me  his  faith,  O  Lord  our  God  most  high, 
Let  me  like  Hervey  live,  like  Hervey  die!  " 

Often  as  I  have  gone  reverently  yet  curi- 
ously among  the  mounds  and  ancient  slabs  of 
these  burying-grounds  a  sense  of  life  has 
seized  me,  their  life,  their  living  sorrows,  trials, 
loves,  and  hates. 

''  Oft  did  the  harvest  to  their  sickle  yield, 

Their  furrow  oft  the  stubborn  glebe  has  broke; 
How  jocund  did  they  drive  their  team  a-field  ! 

How  bowed  the  woods  beneath  their  sturdy  stroke!  " 

Here  are  simply  "  annals,"  as  the  classic  ele- 
giac calls  them,  but  a  life-story  is  "  between 
the  lines,"  always  full  of  interest,  sometimes 
surcharged  with  romance.  Humanity  with 
its  needs,  its  aspirations,  its  jealousies,  its 
strivings,  its  purposes  and  aims  is  the  same 
from  age  to  age. 

I  found  this  epitaph  in  one  of  the  Berkshire 
cemeteries  : 

"  Her  thinkings  and  achings  are  o*  er." 


Berkshire  Epitaphs  349 

Yes  !  it  is  life  which  is  here,  which  is  here 
annalled.  We  all  remember  that  poem  of 
Whittier's  on  "  Forgiveness,"  in  which  the 
poet  describes  himself  as  having  been  once 
very  greatly  wronged  and  was  able  to  forgive, 
as  wandering  one  day  in  the  village  burial- 
place  he  pondered 

"...     how  all  human  love  and  hate 
Find  one  sad  level,  and  how  soon  or  late 
Wronged  and  wrong-doer     .     .     . 
Pass  the  green  threshold  of  our  common  grave; 
Our  common  sorrow,  like  a  mighty  wave, 
Swept  all  my  pride  away  and  trembling  I  forgave." 

The  humor  of  the  burying-grounds  in  Berk- 
shire may  also  be  had  for  the  seeking.  One 
or  two  instances  must  suffice  ;  and  first  of  all 
as  I  was  threading  my  way  through  the  Lanes- 
borough  Cemetery  one  day  my  eye  caught  in 
large  letters  on  a  sarcophagus  up  the  slope 
a  name  familiar  to  every  American  house- 
hold :  "  JOSH  BILLINGS."  On  another  side  of 
the  stone  was  the  real  name  of  the  quaint 
humorist,  "  Henry  Wheeler  Shaw,  b.  1818, 
d.  1885." 

Here  is  an  epitaph  taken  from  one  of  the 
stones  in  eastern  Berkshire  : 


35°  Lenox 

"  He  hath  gone  to  the  upper  blue, 
Where  he  is  free  from  care  and  pain, 
For  he  was  to  our  Saviour  true, 
And  never  was  profane." 

Tradition  says  that  he  "  swore  like  a  pirate," 
but  to  the  loving  descendant  who  erected  the 
stone  his  vices  were  only  foibles. 

Perhaps  the  richest  "  finds  "  in  a  humorous 
way  are  to  be  obtained  in  one  of  the  ceme- 
teries where  the  monument-maker  supplied 
poetry  as  a  part  of  his  stock  in  trade,  as  the 
sign  which  hung  over  his  shop-door  indicates: 

"  Sculptured  marble  done  here 
Of  every  kind 
To  suit  the  fancy 
Of  the  most  refined" 

He  was  proud  of  his  stones  and  with  an 
artist's  privilege  affixed  his  name  to  all  in 
the  lower  right-hand  corner.  Moreover  he 
doubtless  caused  a  panic  among  his  rival 
craftsmen  by  his  ability  to  pictorially  repre- 
sent on  the  marble  the  scene  of  death  ;  a 
death  on  the  railroad,  by  a  man  and  an  engine, 
a  death  from  drowning,  by  a  man  in  a  boat 
fishing,  and  so  on.  His  poetry  is  —  but  let 
us  have  a  few  specimens. 

Here  is  one  of  this  artist's  chefs-d'ceuvres, 
with  accompanying  entablature  : 


Berkshire  Epitaphs  351 

"  I  died  a  fishing  as  this  picture  shows, 
And  left  this  world  with  all  its  woes, 
To  another  region  I  took  my  flight 
In  Co?  with  angels  adoreing  Christ." 

Above  the  poetry  (?)  is  a  baptism,  below 
a  man  sitting  in  a  boat  with  pole  and  line. 

One  more  from  this  cemetery  in  the  sculptor- 
poet's  best  vein  : 

"  Here  lies  Mag 
No  brag, 
Both  fair 
And  wise." 

It  is  unfair  to  judge  this  versatile  stone- 
cutter by  our  poetical  standards,  but  by  those 
of  the  time,  and  he  was  only  a  little,  if  at  all, 
inferior  in  this  respect  to  his  contemporaries. 
Many,  many  are  the  atrocious  poetizings  in  all 
the  Berkshire  churchyards  ;  the  only  concep- 
tion of  poetry  being  rhyme,  not  rhythm  : 

"  Farewell,  all  sublunary  things, 
I  go  to  see  the  King  of  Kings." 

or  this : 

"They  have  gone  to  where — Ah!  pause  and  see. 
Gone  to  a  longe  [sic]  eternety  [«V]." 

The  doctrines  of  the  Church  stand  out  con- 
spicuously on  these  ancient  slabs,  as  might  be 
expected. 


35 2  Lenox 

Here  is  one  on  the  eternal  damnation  of 
those  who  die  impenitent,  a  dogma  the  Church 
is  sloughing  off  with  its  advancing  knowledge 
of  God : 

"  Where  vicious  lives  all  hope  deny, 
A  falling  tear  is  nature's  due." 

Here  is  one  in  scriptural  form  to  illustrate 
the  prevailing  belief  of  old  days  in  the  divine 
hatred  and  loathing  of  the  creature,  man  : 

"  Blessed  in  the  sight  of  the  Lord  is  the 
death  of  his  saints.  But  God  is  angry 
with  the  wicked  every  day." 

Here  is  another  to  show  the  faith  of  the 
Church  in  a  bodily  resurrection  : 

"  Though  worms  my  poor  body  may  claim 

As  their  prey, 

'T  will  outshine  when  rising  the  sun 
At  noonday." 

One  of  the  most  interesting  features  of 
these  ancient  cemeteries  is  the  interment 
within  them  of  very  many  of  the  old  pastors, 
who,  beloved  of  their  flock,  ministered  in  these 
parishes  for  thirty,  forty,  fifty,  and  in  one  case 
almost  sixty  years,  and  then  found  a  resting- 
place  amid  the  scenes  of  their  life-work.  Those 
were  the  days  of  long  pastorates  and  installa- 


va   o> 

s  P 


II 


Berkshire  Epitaphs  353 

tion  was  the  marriage  of  pastor  and  people  for 
life.  Reviewing  his  ministry  on  the  fiftieth 
anniversary  of  his  settlement  over  the  church 
in  Lenox,  Dr.  Shepard  said  : 

"  Fifty  years  ago  this  day,  and  at  this  very  hour  of  the 
day  (April  30,  1795),  a  scene  was  witnessed  upon  this 
hill,  of  deep  moral  interest.  A  youth  was  solemnly  con- 
secrated to  the  Gospel  ministry,  but  who  would  recog- 
nize in  the  time-worn  pilgrim  who  now  stands  before 
you  the  same  man  who  was  then  stationed  upon  these 
heights  of  Zion.  Since  my  ordination  here  I  have  re- 
ceived into  the  church  815  persons,  baptized  969,  at- 
tended the  funerals  of  953,  and  have  probably  preached 
on  an  average  four  sermons  a  week.  Your  fathers 
did  not  despise  my  youth  on  account  of  its  weak- 
nesses and  imperfections  ;  and  I  am  encouraged  by  past 
experience  to  rely  on  your  patience,  forbearance,  and 
sympathy  when  all  the  reward  you  can  hope  for  will 
consist  in  the  satisfaction  of  having  aided  an  old  man 
down  the  steep  of  age  and  through  the  last  stages  of  his 
weary  pilgrimage." 

Dr.  Shepard's  grave  is  just  outside  the  door 
of  the  village  church  on  the  hilltop,  with  the 
appropriate  inscription  on  the  stone  : 

"  Remember  the  words  that  I  spake  unto 
you  while  I  was  yet  with  you." 

I    cannot  close   this    chapter  on    Berkshire 
epitaphs   without    saying    that   laudatory    in- 

»3 


354  Lenox 

scriptions  in  these  ancient  churchyards  are  ex- 
tremely rare.     One  of  the  best  is  this  : 

"  Reader,  expect  the  day  that  shall  reveal 
to  an  assembled  world  the  piety  and  virtues 
of  Deacon  James  Wadsworth." 

But  as  a  rule  it  was  a  modest  age,  for  the 
modesty  of  true  worth  says  sincerely  and  be- 
comingly, "  When  saw  we  thee  an  hungered 
and  fed  thee  ?  or  sick  and  in  prison  and  minis- 
tered unto  thee?"  The  story  of  the  epitaphs 
is  mostly  a  lesson  in  mortality,  yet  here  is  an- 
other laudatory  one  which  shows  that  our 
fathers  recognized  in  what  true  religion  con- 
sisted. It  is  to  the  memory  of  Timothy  Wood- 
bridge,  who  died  in  Stockbridge,  1774: 

"  Beneath  the  sacred  honors  of  the  tomb, 
In  awful  and  majestic  gloom, 
The  man  of  mercy  here  conceals  his  head 
Amidst  the  awful  mansions  of  the  dead. 
No  more  his  liberal  hand  shall  keep  the  poor, 
Relieve  distress,  nor  scatter  joy  no  more." 

There  are  other  cemeteries  in  Berkshire  be- 
sides those  which  were  common  to  the  people 
of  the  village  ;  and  here  and  there  in  out-of- 
the-way  places  one  runs  across  family  burying- 
grounds,  which,  however,  yield  nothing  of 


Berkshire  Epitaphs 


355 


interest  to  the  epitaph-seeker,  who  with  rev- 
erent hand  removes  the  moss  from  the  "  un- 
couth rhymes,  the  short  and  simple  annals" 
on  these  hoary  slabs. 


INDEX 


Academy,  Lenox,  2,  19-21  ;  dis- 
tinguished graduates  20,  179, 
190 

Adams,  John  Coleman,  105 
Adams,  Thatcher  M.,  199 
Adams,  town  of,  210,  223,  225, 

302,  306 

Agassiz,  Louis,  159 
Alden,  Rev.  E.  K.,  40,  313 
Alford,  48,  303 
Allen,  Ethan,  266 
Allen,  Rev.  Thos.,  226,  227,  229, 

300,  337,  339 
Allen,  William,  312 
American  Notes,  151 
Appleton,  Misses,  44 
Arnold,  Matthew,  87-90 
Aspinwall  Hotel,  180,  186 
Aspinwall,  W.  H.,  170,  172 
Athenaeum  at  Pittsfield,  228,  230 
Auchmuty,  R.  T.,  167,  175,  183 
Auchmuty,  Mrs.   R.  T.,  50,  165 
Augusta,  Princess,  87 
Avery,  Rev.  Stephen,  302 

Bacon,  Mrs.  E.  G.,  187 
Bald  Head,  97,  100,  172,  181 
Ballantine,  Rev.  John,  303 
Barclay,  Henry,  191 
Barlow,  Gen.  F.,  175 
Barlow,  Mrs.  Francis  C.,  199 
Barnard,  Pres.  F.  P.,  219,  267 
Barnes,  James,  84 
Barnes,  John  S.,  200 


Barrington,   Great,    23,    48,  62, 
219,  228,  249,  253,  297  ;  pic- 
ture of,  century  ago,  66 
Bartlett,  Gen.  W.  F.,  230 
Bash-Bish  Falls,  221,  251 
Bear  Mountain,  84 
Becket,  49,  299 
Beecher,    Henry  Ward,   36,  37, 

84,  103,  104,  171 
Beecher  Hill,  36 
Belknap,  Rev.  Jeremy,  227 
Berkshire    Agricultural  Society, 

228 
Berkshire   Association,    minutes 

of,  314-316 

Berks/lire  Chronicle,  The,  9 
Berkshire  Coffee-House,  69 
Berkshire  deserted  villages,  268- 

274 
Berkshire    Medical     Institution, 

228 

Berkshire,  separated  from  Hamp- 
shire, 3,  52  ;  first  railroads  in, 
n,    12;    schools  in,   63;    his- 
tory of,  by  Field,  92,  177 
Biddle,  Mrs.  J.  W.,  186 
Bidwell,  Rev.  Adonijah,  299 
Billings,  Josh,  grave  of,  at  Lanes- 
borough,  62,  349 
Bishop,  D.  W.,  182,  192 
Bishop,  Henry,  189 
Bishop,  Judge  II.  W.,  189 
Blithedale  Romance,  1 52 
Boston  &  Albany  R.  R.,  222 


357 


358 


Index 


Botta,  Amelie,  153 
Boundary  line   between    Massa- 
chusetts and  New  York,  4,  52 
Bradford,  Rev.  James,  312 
Bradford,  Wm.  H.,  183 
Braem,  Henry  W. ,  175,  185 
Brainerd,  David,  243 
Bremer,  Frederika,  79,  80,  127 
Briggs,  Gen.  H.  S.,  230 
Briggs,  Gov.  Geo.  N.,  229 
Bristed,  Chas.  Astor,  191 
Browning,     Elizabeth      Barrett, 

157 
Bryant,  Wm.  Cullen,  23,  62,  89, 

97-99,  127,  129,  218,  219,  253 
Buckham,  Pres.  Matthew,  21 
Bullard,  Chas.,  193 
Bullard,  Wm.  S.,  169,  170,  191 
Burden,  J.  W.,  184 
Burgoyne's  march  to  Boston,  266 
Burr,  Aaron,  247 

Carey,   Miss   Mary   DeP.,   175, 

187 
Catlitti    Jacob,     Rev.,    93,    311, 

319,  321-333,  337 
Catskill  Mountains,  172,  218 
Channing,  Ellery,  96,  141 
Channing,   Wm.   Ellery,    9,    28, 

102,  117,  127,  128 
Chapel,  St.  Helena,  New  Lenox, 

1 66 

Chapin,  Robert  W.,  200 
Choate,  Hon.  Joseph,  216 
Chisholm,  Lord  Provost,  87 
Church,   the    Lenox    Congrega- 
tional, 38,   180,  299 ;    Trinity 
Episcopal,    165,    198 ;  Roman 
Catholic,  179;  Methodist  Epis- 
copal, 197 
Clarence,  121 

Climate,  Berkshire,  153,  154 
Coleridge,   Lord   Chief  Justice, 

87 

Collins,  Rev.  D.,  301,  337 
Cook,  H.  II.,  181,  192 
Cooper,  Fenimore,   23,    no,  in 
Country    newspapers     in     early 
times,  10,  n 


County  conventions  in  Lenox,  41 
County  Court-house,  second,  46, 

68,  178 

Crane,  Gov.  W.  Murray,  215 
Crane,  Zenas,  230 
Curtis   Hotel,  43,  68,   102,  203, 

215 

Curtisville,  305 
Cushman,  Charlotte,  36,  83,  175, 

188 

Dalton,  215,  223,  225,  229,  303 

Dana,  R.  S.,  175 

Davis,  the  Hon.  David,  20 

Davis,  Wm.  Stearns,  63,  230 

Dawes,  Miss  Anna,  229 

Dawes,  Senator  Henry  L.,  229 

Dewey,  Mary,  79,  80 

Dewey,  the  Rev.  Orville,  28, 
219,  267 

Dickens,  Chas.,  143 

Division  line,  between  Massa- 
chusetts and  New  York,  221 

Dome,  Taghconic,  65,  74,  89, 
100,  172,  194,  207,  219,  221, 
249,  262 

Duke  of  Stockbridge,  Bellamy, 
105 

Dwight,  Pres.  T.,  25,  37,  65 

Edwards,  Rev.  Jonathan,  50,  51, 
86,  93,  234,  239,  246-248,  258, 
264,  271,  308,  309 

Egleston,  David,  165 

Egleston,  Prof.  Thomas,  7,  164, 

174 

Egremont,  48,  301 
Egremont,  South,  220,  251 
Eighteenth-century  fiction,  109 
Eliot,  Geo.,  143 
Ellis,  Rev.  Dr.,  156 
Emerson,  R.  W.,  141,  156,  159 
English  travellers  in  Berkshire, 

85,  87 

Epitaphs,  Berkshire,  340-345 
Evans,  Marian,  143 
Everett,  Mt.,  36,   58,  219,  221; 

by  whom  named,  or;    as  seen 

by  Dr.  Dwight,  65 


Index 


359 


Face  to  Face,  Grant,  106 
Field,  Cyrus  W.,  85,  340 
Field,  Hon.  David  Dudley,  340 
Field,   Rev.  David  Dudley,  101, 

237,  244,  313,  340 
Field,  Rev.  Henry  M.,  20,  102, 

216,  340 

Field,  Judge  Stephen,  340 
Fields,  Jas.  T.,  34 
Fiske,  John,  42 
Florida,  town  of,  305 
Folsom,  Geo.  F.,  175,  187 
Foster,  Giraud,  200,  201 
Freedom  of  the  Will,  5 1 
Frelinghuysen,  T.,  152,  202 
"  Friendly     Union,"     Sheffield, 

267 

French  and  Indian  War,  5 
French  officers  at    Stockbridge, 

118 

Frothingham,  S.,  193 
Fuller,  Margaret,  142 
Furniss,  Miss  C.,  175,  187 

Gilder,  R.  W.,  84,  101,  171 
Gilmore,  Alfred,  174 
Gilmore,  Mrs.  Alfred,  196 
Glass  Works  Grant,  Lenox,  205 
Glendale,  238 
Glezen,  Levi,  21 
Goelet,  Robert,  200 
Goldsmith's    Deserted     Village, 

quotations  from,  270,  271 
Goodale  sisters,  36,  63 
Goodman,  R.,  Sr. ,  167,  174,  195 
Goodrich,  Mrs.  J.  Z.,  288 
Grant,  Ministers',  50 
Grant,  the  Quincy,  50 
Green  River,  99 
Greenleaf,  Dr.  R.  C.,  175,  184 
Greylock,   Mt.,  36,   58,   68,    76, 

183,  194,  207,  221,  231;   view 

from,  210,  2ii 
Griswold,  D.  F.,  188 

Haggerty,  Ogden.  170 
Hale,  E.  E.,  152 
Halleck,  Fitz-Greene,  23 
Hancock,  town  of,  225 


Harris,  Rev.  Samuel,  229 
Harrison,  Mrs.   Burton,  37,  83, 

105 

Haven,  George  G.,  201 
Hawthorne,  Julian,  75,  147,  155 
Hawthorne,  Mrs.,  137,  139,  140, 

150,  154 
Hawthorne,    Nathaniel,    32-34, 

75,  86,  100,    136-160;    Ameri- 
can Note-books,  96,  169 
Hawthorne  Street,  156 
Haystack  Monument,  213 
Headley,  J.  T.,  96 
Herrick,  Zebulon,  10 
Higginson,  Geo.,  174,  191 
Hinsdale,  town  of,  305 
Holland,  J.  G.,  277,  281 
Holmes,  O.  W.,  34,  61,   70,  96, 

144,   159,   169,  215,   224,  229, 

346 

Home,  124 
Home  of   Catherine   Sedgwick, 

Lenox,  202 
Hoosac  Tunnel,  209 
Hope  Leslie,  121 
Hopkins    Memorial    Manse    at 

Great  Barrington,  252 
Hopkins,  Pres.  Mark,  20,  91 
Hopkins,  Rev.   Samuel,  64,  66, 

93,    236,    241,    252,  253-262, 

271,  298,  308,  319,  321-333 
Hosmer,  Harriet,  23,  79 
Hotchkin,  Rev.  John,  21,  189 
Housatonic,  town  of,  218,  223, 

250,  305 

Housatonic  River,  48,  59 
"House  of    Mercy,"    Pittsfield, 

224 
House  of  the  Seven  Gables,   146, 

149-151,  156,  192 
Howe,  Dr.  Samuel,  169 
Hubbard,  Rev.  Jonathan,  297 
Humphrey,   Rev.    Heman,   226, 

229,  312 
Hyde,  Rev.  Alvan,  304,  338 

"  Ice    Glen,"    Stockbridge,    66, 

100 
Indian  chiefs,  94 


36° 


Index 


Indian  monument  at  Stock- 
bridge,  86,  234,  238 

Indian  names,  58-60 

Indian  trail  across  the  Hoosacs, 
264 

Indians,  in  Berkshire,  3,  48,  49, 
51,  57-60,  205,  234,  240-249 

Indians,  Memoirs  of  Housatun- 
nuk,  by  Samuel  Hopkins 
(Springfield),  94 

Interlaken  (Curtisville),  238 

Iron  Works,  Lenox,  205 

Irving,  Washington,  23,  no,  ill 

James,  G.  P.  R.,  34 

Jameson,  Mrs.  Anna,  28,  69,  72, 

79,  90,  113,  127,  128,  237 
Jaques,  Dr.  Henry  P.,  185 
Jesup,  Morris  K.,  164,  184 
Judson,  Rev.  Ephraim,  265,  311, 

312,  339 

Kelvin,  Lord,  87 
Kemble,  Mrs.  Fanny,  8,  17,  21, 
28-31,  35,  44,  69-76,   80-82, 
84,  90,  127,  128,  141,  164,  168, 
169,  171 

Kemble  Street,  17 
Kingsland,  Mrs.  A.  C.,  186 
Kingsley,  Chas.,  85 
Kinne,  Rev.  Aaron,  303 
Kinnicutt,  Dr.  F.  P.,  87,  187 
Kneeland,  Miss  Adele,  189 
Kneeland,  Chas.,  165,  174 
Kuhn,  Mrs.  H.,  175,  186 

Lanesborough,  214,  299 

Lanier,  Chas.,  165,  170,  181,  196 

Lathrop,  Mrs.  Rose  Hawthorne, 
35,  81,  140 

Laurel  Hill,  239 

Laurel  Hill  Association,  Stock- 
bridge,  275-293 

Laurel  Lake,  84,  171,  193,  201 

Lecky's  History  of  England,  54 

Lee,  48,  225,  303 

Lee,  Mrs.,  189 

Lenox,  settlement  and  incorpo- 
ration, i,  4,  5,  53  ;  old  build- 


ings, 2,  16 ;  original  name  of 
settlement,  5  ;  early  ecclesias- 
tical questions,  6  ;  contribu- 
tions to  American  Revolution, 
7;  non-importation  agreement, 
7;  town  minutes,  7;  cemetery 
at,  8;  Channing's  address  at, 
9;  becomes  county  seat,  9; 
weekly  newspaper,  n  ;  first 
Berkshire  County  railroad 
convention,  12  ;  early  stage- 
routes,  13,  14;  Berkshire  Cof- 
fee-House,  14;  in  court  week, 
15;  fight  to  retain  courts  at, 
16;  removal  of  courts,  18;  sum- 
mer visitors  at,  18;  site  of  jail 
and  "Gallows  Hill,"  18;  early 
references  to,  25-27,  30;  liter- 
ary society  in,  35,  48,  122, 141; 
Beecher  in,  36,  37  ;  county 
conventions  in,  41 ;  temperance 
revival,  41 ;  early  industries  in, 
43,  205;  beginnings  of  change 
to  resort,  44;  Library  Associa- 
tion, 46;  spelling  of  name 
of  town,  56;  no  poor  in,  71; 
social,  105;  view  from  Haw- 
thorne's house,  144;  modern, 
161-206;  villas  in,  172-176, 
216;  streets  in,  177;  valuation 
of,  204;  population  of,  204; 
business  of,  205,  206;  creation 
of  post-office  at,  228 

Library,  Town,  42,  46,  166 

Linwoods,  121 

Liquor,  use  of,  in  old  times,  317, 
.318 

Literary  women  in  Berkshire, 
79.  82,  83 

"Little  red  house,"  96,  100, 
101,  143,  146,  154-156,  170, 
171,  192 

Live  and  Let  Live,  123 

Livingston,  E.  McA.,  187 

Longfellow,    H.   W.,    141,    157, 

159 

Lothrop,  Mrs.  T.  K.,  188 
Lowell,  J.  R.,  34,  96,  141,  142, 

150,  151,  159 


Index 


361 


Lowell  and  His  Friends,  1 52 
Lydig,  David,  199 

McKim,  Chas.  F.,  187 

Mann,  Horace,  132,  137 

Maplewood  Young  Ladies'  In- 
stitute, 228 

Marble  Faun,  158 

Married  or  Single,  126 

Martineau,  Harriet,  23,  28,  76- 
79,  125,  237 

Mason,  Lowell,  42 

Melville,    Herman,   35,    62,   96, 

142,  229 
Mill  River,  305 
Ministers'  Grant,  50 
Mitchell,  D.  G.,  121,  125,  202, 

231 

Mitford,  Miss,  in,  130 
Monson,  Rev.  Samuel,  6,  300 
Monterey,  299 
Monument  Mt.,  58,  95,  97,  172, 

216-218,  221, 232, 249; why  so 

called,  66 

Monument  Mountain,  99,  233 
Morgan,  Geo.  H.,  165,  170,  185, 

199 
Mosses  from  an  Old  Manse,  139, 

143,  147 

Motley,  John  L.,  157 

Mountainous       region,       Haw- 
thorne's view  of,   146 

Movements  of  religious  thought 

in  New  England,  260 
Music,  sacred,  42 

Nature  Studies  in  Berkshire,  105 

New  Ashford,  213 

New   England    Tale,   100,    112, 

113,  119,  131,  133,  258 
New     Marlborough,     49,     251; 

academy  at,  272 
Non-importation  agreement,  7 
North  Adams,  209,  223,  305 
"  Northampton  woods,"  51 

October  Mt.,  183,  194 
Oliver,  Gen.,  175 


Onota  Lake,  231 
Otis,  225,  302 

Parish,  Miss  Helen,  189 
Parkhurst,  Rev.  C.  H.,  40,  64 
Parsons,  John  E.,  87,  165,  166, 

175,  185 
Paterson,  Major-General  John, 7, 

92,  164,  196;  life  of,  by  Egles- 

ton,  92 

Paterson  Monument,  177 
Patterson,  R.  W.,  174,  200 
Pease,  H.  H.,  191 
Perry's  Peak,  22  r 
Peru,  town  of,  301 
Pierce,  Franklin,  158,  159 
Pierpont,  Judge,  162,  174,  175 
Pitt,  Wm.,  Earl  of  Chatham,  56, 

225 
Pittsfield,    10,    16,    57,    59,    62, 

214,  222-231,  299 
Planchette,  amusing  story  about, 

80 
Pontoosuc  Lake,  57,  230 

Queechy  Lake,  63 

Quincy,  Judge  Edmund,  49,  50 

Quincy  Grant,  50 

Rathbone,  Gen.  John   F.,    170, 

174 
Rattlesnake  Mt.,  58,   101,    172, 

194,  221 
Redwood,  121 

Revolution,  the  American,  7 
Richmond,  Lennox,  Duke  of,  6, 

53-57 

Richmond,  town  of,  5,  53,  299 
Robeson,  W.  R.,  173,  188 
Rockwell,  Judge  Julius,  202 
Root,  Geo.  F.,  219,  267 

St.   Helen's    Home,  Interlaken, 

238 

Salisbury,  Conn.,  74,  221 
Salisbury,  Prof.,  173,  1 88 
Sandisfield.  49,  299;  ministers 

in,   271 


362 


Index 


Sands,  Philip,  193 

Sargent,  John  O.,  84 

Sargent,  Miss  Georgiana,  200 

Savoy,  305 

Scarlet  Letter,  137,  142,  144 

Schermerhorn,  Mrs.  Adeline  E., 

46,  164,  171 
Schermerhorn,     F.    Aug.,     165, 

170,  185,  199 

Schermerhorn,  J.  Egmont,   189 
Schermerhorn,  W.  C.,  179 
Sedgwick,    Miss  Catherine,    12- 

14,  22,  23,  27,  45,  61,  66,  70, 

72,   77-79,  98,  102,  104,   108- 

135,   140,   163,  202,  231,  236, 

237,  288,  335 
Sedgwick,  Charles,  122 
Sedgwick,  Mrs.  Charles,  82,  102; 

school  for  girls,  22-24,  82,  202 
Sedgwick,  Ellery,  173,  188 
Sedgwick,  Hon.  Theodore,  115, 

231 
Sergeant,  John,  49,  94,  234,  241, 

297,  334 

Shaw,  Miss  Anna,  189 
Shaw,  S.  Parkman,  174,  196 
Shays'  rebellion,  266 
Sheffield,  48,  219,  250,  251,  262- 

268,  297 
Shepard,   Rev.  Samuel,  19,  38- 

.40,  313,  338,  353 
Sigourney,  Mrs.,  82,  100 
Silliman,   Prof.   B.,    25,   66,  67, 

270 

Sismondi,  23,  127 
Skinner's    Myths   and    Legends, 

60 

"  Sky  Farm,"  37 
Sloane,  John,  87,  170,  183,  200 
Sloane,    William    D.,    182,    193, 

195 
Snow  Image   and   Other    Tales, 

151 

Southfield,  305 
Springfield,  Mass.,  228 
Stanley,  Dean,  85,  86 
Star  Papers,  36,  103,  104 
Stebbins,  Emma,  164,  188 
Steele,  Rev.  E.,  302 


Stephens,  Hon.  Alexander  H.,  20 
Stevens,  B.  K.,  189 
Stockbridge,  32,  48,  49,   51,  59, 
77,  87,  89,  228,  231-248,  275- 

293 
Stockbridge   Bowl,   32,    61,    97, 

100,  169-172,  181,  216 
Stokes,  Anson  Phelps,  174,  181, 

187 
Stowe,  Harriet  Beecher,  79,  80, 

in,  255,  260,  262 
Strong,  Rev.  Cyprian,  39 
Strong,  Rev.  Thos.,  298 
Struthers,  Mrs.  John,  199,  200 
Sturgis,  F.  K.,  174,  201 
Sumner,  Charles,  70,  74,  169 
Surrender  of  Louisbourg,  news 

of,  266 
Swift,  Rev.  J.,  300 

Taghconic  Mountains,  36,  48,  49 
Tales  and  Sketches,  121,  131 
Tangle  wood  Tales,  145 
Tappan,  William,  170,  191 
Taylor,  Zachary,  136 
Temperance    minute    by    Berk- 
shire physicians,  41 
Temperance  revival,  41 
Theology  of  the  fathers,  319-332 
Thompson,  Mrs.  William,  170 
Thoreau,  H.  D.,  142 
Tiffany,  Mrs.,  164 
Todd,  Rev.  John,  226,  229,  312 
"Tom  Ball"  Mt.,  221 
Travellers,  121 
Twice  Told  Tales,  139 
Tyringham,  49,  84,  299 

Unitarianism,  rise  of,  118 
Village  Improvement,  275-293 

Wahconah  Falls,  231 
Walker,  Judge  Wm.,  174,  195 
Walpole,  Horace,  letters  of,  ref- 
erences to  Duke  of  Richmond, 

54 

Ward,  S.  G.,  70,  168,   174,  191 
Warner,  Charles  Dudley,  106 


Index 


363 


Warner,  Susan,  and  Wide  Wide 

World,  63 

Washington,  Mount,  48 
Washington,  town  of,  225,  301 
Watson,  Elkanah,  229 
Watson,  John  (Ian  Maclaren),  87 
Weather  in  England,  90 
Welch,  Rev.  Whitman,  300 
Wendell,  Jacob,  61,  225 
West,    Stephen,    93,    236,    24 }., 

309,  310,  336 
West  Stockbridge,  49,  305 
West  Stockbridge  Centre,  303 
Westinghouse,  George,  87,   182, 

193 
Western  Massachusetts,  History 

of,  by  Holland,  177 
Wharton,  Mrs.  Edith,  83 
Wharton,  Edward  R.,  200 
Wharton,  Mrs.  Wm.  C.,  199 
Wheeler,  Miss,  154 


Whipple,    E.   P.,    34,   96,    141, 

159 

Whistler,  Joseph  S.,  196 
White,  Mrs.  Joseph,  174,  196 
Whittier,  reference  to  Hopkins, 

255,  259,  261 
Williams  College,  36,  40,  61,  91, 

213 

Williamstown,  36,  212,  228,  299 
Williamstown,  South,  213,  305 
Windsor,  301 
Winthrop,  Mrs.  R.,  185 
Wolfe  and  Montcalm,  5 
Wonder  Book  for  Children,  IOO, 

105,  149,  150,  152 
Woolsey,  E.  J.,  170-172 
Writers,  notable  female,  IIO 

Yale  College,  38 

Yancy,  Hon.  Wm.  L.,  20 

"  Yokun's  Seat,"  184 


American 


Historic  Towns  of  New  England 

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GEORGE  P.  MORRIS.    With  161  illustrations.    Large 

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Haven,  by  Frederick  Hull  Cogswell. 

"These  monographs  have  permanent  literary  and  historical  value.  They 
are  from  the  pens  of  authors  who  are  saturated  with  their  themes,  and  do  not 
write  to  order,  but  con  amore.  The  beautiful  letterpress  adds  greatly  to  the 
attractiveness  of  the  book."  —  The  Watchman. 

"  The  authors  of  the  Boston  papers  have  succeeded  in  presenting  a  wonderfully 
interesting  account  in  which  none  of  the  more  important  events  have  been 
omitted.  .  .  .  the  quaint  Cape_  Cod  towns  that  have  clung  tenaciously  to 
their  old-fashioned  ways  are  described  with  a  characteristic  vividness  by  Miss 
Bates.  .  .  .  The  other  papers  are  presented  in  a  delightfully  attractive 
manner  that  will  serve  to  make  more  deeply  cherished  the  memory  of  the  places 
described."  —  New  York  Times. 


Historic  Towns  of  the  Middle  States 

Edited  by  LYMAN  P.  POWELL.      With  introduction  by 
Dr.  ALBERT  SHAW.     With  135  illustrations.     Large 

8°,  gilt  top net  $3  oo 

CONTENTS  :  Albany,  by  W.  W.  Battershall  ;  Saratoga,  by 
Ellen  H.  Walworth  ;  Schenectady,  by  Judson  S.  Landon ;  New- 
burgh,  by  Adelaide  Skeel ;  Tarrytown,  by  H.  W.  Mabie  ;  Brook- 
lyn, by  Harrington  Putnam  ;  New  York,  by  J.  B.  Gilder  ;  Buffalo, 
by  Rowland  B.  Mahany  ;  Pittsburgh,  by  S.  H.  Church  ;  Phila- 
delphia, by  Talcott  Williams  ;  Princeton,  by  W.  M.  Sloane ; 
Wilmington,  by  E.  N.  Vallandigham. 

"  Mr.  Powell's  contributors  have  prepared  a  most  interesting  collection  of 
papers  on  important  landmarks  of  the  Middle  States.  The  writers  enter  into  the 
history  of  their  respective  towns  with  much  elaborateness." — N.  Y.  Tribune. 

O.  P.  PUTNAM'S  SONS,  New  York  and  London 


Historic  Towns  of  the  Southern  States 

Edited  by  LYMAN  P.  POWELL.  With  introduction  by 
W.  P.  TRENT.  With  about  175  illustrations.  Large 
8°,  gilt  top net  $3  oo 

CONTENTS  :  Baltimore,  By  St.  George  L.  Sioussat ;  Annapolis 
and  Frederick,  by  Sara  Andrew  Shafer ;  Washington,  by  F.  A. 
Vanderlip  ;  Richmond,  by  William  Wirt  Henry  ;  Willtamsburg, 
by  Lyon  G.  Tyler  ;  Wilmington,  N.  C.,  by  J.  B.  Cheshire  ; 
Charlestown,  by  Yates  Snowden  ;  Savannah,  by  Pleasant  A. 
Stoval ;  St.  Augustine,  by  G.  R.  Fairbanks  ;  Mobile,  by  Peter 
J.  Hamilton  ;  Montgomery,  by  George  Petrie  ;  New  Orleans, 
by  Grace  King  ;  Vicksburg,  by  H.  F.  Simrall  ;  Knoxville,  by 
Joshua  W.  Caldwell  ;  Nashville,  by  Gates  P.  Thruston  ;  Louis- 
ville, by  Lucien  V.  Rule  ;  Little  Rock,  by  George  B.  Rose. 

"  This  very  charming  volume  is  so  exquisitely  gotten  up,  the  scheme  is  so 
perfect,  the  seventeen  writers  have  done  their  work  with  such  historical  accuracy 
and  with  such  literary  skill,  the  illustrations  are  so  abundant  and  so  artistic,  that 
all  must  rejoice  that  Mr.  Powell  ever  attempted  to  make  the  historical  pilgrim- 
ages."— Journal  of  Education. 


Historic  Towns  of  the  Western  States 

Edited  by  LYMAN  P.  POWELL.  With  introduction  by 
R.  G.  THWAITES.  With  218  illustrations.  Large  8°, 
gilt  top.  (By  mail  $3.25)  .  .  .  net  $3  oo 

CONTENTS  :  Detroit,  by  Silas  Farmer  ;  Chicago,  by  Hon.  Lyman 
T.  Gage ;  St.  Louis,  by  F.  M.  Crunden  ;  Monterey,  by  Harold 
Bake  ;  San  Francisco,  by  Edwin  Markham ;  Portland,  by  Rev. 
Thomas  L.  Cole  ;  Madison,  by  Prof.  R.  G.  Thwaites  ;  Kansas 
City,  by  Charles  S.  Gleed  ;  Cleveland,  by  President  Charles  F. 
Thwing ;  Cincinnati,  by  Hon.  M.  E.  Ailes ;  Marietta,  by  Muriel 
C.  Dyar  ;  Des  Moines,  by  Dr.  F.  I.  Herriot ;  Indianapolis,  by 
Hon.  Perry  S.  Heath  ;  Denver,  by  J.  C.  Dana ;  Omaha,  by  Dr. 
Victor  Rosewater  ;  Los  Angeles,  by  Florence  E.  Winslow  ;  Salt 
Lake  City,  by  Prof.  James  E.  Talmage  ;  Minneapolis  and  St. 
Paul,  by  Hon.  Charles  B.  Elliott;  Santa  Fe",  by  Dr.  F.  W. 
Hodge  ;  Vincennes,  by  W.  H.  Smith. 


Q.  P.  PUTNAM'S  SONS,   New  York  and  London 


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